This easy recipe for lemon shortbread cookies makes a dough that you can roll out and cutout with cookie cutters, or even stamp out to give them a pattern. They are brushed with a lemon glaze when warm for extra lemon flavour.
For this recipe, we are using the classic shortbread ratio of 1:2:3 by weight, so 1 part sugar, 2 parts butter, and 3 parts flour, combined with lemon zest and lemon juice.
This is the same ratio I used for these lavender shortbread and it's the base for these easy lemon bars. However, instead of patting the dough in a pan to bake, you can roll out the shortbread to cut them with cookie cutters as done in the recipe below.
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What You Need
You can make lemon butter cookies easily with simple ingredients you likely have at home all the time! Here's what you need:
- Butter—This recipe calls for unsalted butter. If using salted, you will need to adjust the salt to compensate.
- Sugar—These lemon shortbread are made with granulated sugar. I like to use granulated sugar because I find it gives the shortbread a crispier, coarse texture that I look for in shortbread. You could use icing sugar instead as a possible baking substitution, as in these jam-filled shortbread cookies. The icing sugar will make the cookies more tender and gives them a melt-in-your-mouth quality.
- Flour—I tested this recipe with bleached all-purpose flour. You could likely use unbleached and achieve similar results.
- Salt—I bake with Diamond Crystal Fine Kosher salt. If using table salt, add half the amount or the cookies may be too salty.
- Lemon juice and zest—please use fresh lemons for this recipe. Do not use bottled lemon juice because the flavour isn't great!
Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.
How to Make Lemon-Flavoured Shortbread Cookies
Step 1—Combine the butter, sugar and lemon zest in the mixer bowl (image 1) and cream them together until light and fluffy (image 2) before adding the dry ingredients (image 3).
Step 2—Mix the cookie dough until it's crumbly, but still a bit dry (image 4) then add the lemon juice and mix until the dough comes together (image 5).
Step 3—Divide the dough into 2 equal disks (image 6) and wrap in plastic wrap to chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface and press with a cookie stamps (optional) and cut out with cookie cutters (image 7). Bake on parchment-lined baking sheets until the edges begin to brown lightly (image 8).
Tip: Using a cookie stamp (like these stamps from Nordic Ware on Amazon I used here), pressed on the surface of the cookies before baking, leads to lots of nooks and crannies so the cookies can hold more glaze. The dents give place where a little extra glaze can settle in without running off. Stamping is optional, but I love the effect it gives and the extra glaze the cookie can accomodate because of the texture.
Step 4—while the cookie dough is chilling, you can prepare the lemon glaze. First sift the icing sugar to remove lumps (image 9), then whisk in the melted butter and hot lemon juice (image 10). Whisk until smooth (image 11).
Step 5—Brush the lemon glaze on the warm cookies so that it melts on. The glaze will harden slightly so that you can pack the cookies once completely cooled.
Note: The tart lemon flavour mostly comes from the glaze, made with lemon juice, icing sugar, and a little butter to round out the flavour. This is the same glaze used for these soft gingerbread cookies.
Baking Tips to Prevent Rolled Shortbread Cookies From Spreading
The trouble with shortbread is that they are high in fat and, sometimes, if the butter gets too warm, the cookies can spread in the oven.
To avoid cookies spreading too much in the oven:
- chill the cookie dough before rolling out the dough and baking the cookies. Actually chilling the dough also makes the dough easier to roll out because when the butter is warm, the dough is particularly tender and prone to tearing and sticking to the work surface, even if it's floured.
- chill the cut-out cookies before baking to ensure that the cookie dough is cold before you pop the pan into the oven.
- do all the rolling, stamping, and cutting at once, and get all the cookies onto a couple of cookie sheets to chill them all at once.
- preheat the oven while the cookies are chilling. Then when they are firm and the oven is preheated, transfer a few to another baking sheet, spacing them out to allow air to circulate between them and then bake them. I find it's easier to batch the work of rolling, cutting, chilling, and baking.
If your oven temperature is too low, cookies may spread more, just like if the cookie dough is too warm. Pay attention to the temperatures of both and adjust accordingly if you notice too much spreading.
Other Lemon Baked Goods to Try
If you are a fan of lemon desserts, you should definitely try these lemon crinkle cookies, a classic lemon loaf cake, lemon ice cream and, of course, these easy lemon squares, which everybody raves about!
If you tried this easy recipe for lemon shortbread cookies (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!
📖 Recipe
Lemon Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
Lemon shortbread
- 230 grams unsalted butter room temperature
- 100 grams granulated sugar
- 15 mL finely grated lemon zest
- 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt (or up to 1 teaspoon fine kosher salt)
- 290 grams bleached all-purpose flour
- 22.5 mL fresh lemon juice
Lemon glaze
- 125 grams icing sugar
- 30 mL fresh lemon juice heated in the microwave so it's hot
- 28 grams unsalted butter melted
- 1 pinch Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
Instructions
Lemon shortbread
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, lemon zest, and salt until it is smooth, light, and creamy.
- Add the flour and beat it in until the mixture turns into a sandy crumble. Mix in the lemon juice. The mixture should come together into a uniform dough once you add the liquid.
- Divide the mixture in two and flatten each piece of dough into a disk. Wrap them in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350 ºF (175 °C). Line a few sheet pans with parchment paper.
- Working with one disk of dough at a time, on a lightly floured surface, using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to between ⅛–¼ inch (3–6 mm). Stamp out as many cookies as possible using floured cookie stamps, then cut with 3-inch (7.6 cm) cookie cutters.
- Transfer the cookies to a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving a 1 inch space between them. If the cookies are too soft, chill them before baking.
- Bake the cookies until the edges are just beginning to brown, about 13 to 15 minutes. Prepare the glaze while the cookies are baking (see below).
- Let cool 5 minutes then brush generously with the lemon glaze so that the glaze melts onto the cookies. Let cool completely. The glaze should harden.
- Repeat with the rest of the cookie dough, rerolling the scraps.
Lemon glaze
- To make the lemon-butter glaze while the cookies are in the oven, as the glaze needs to be brushed onto the cookies while they are still warm.
- Sift the confectioners’ sugar into a small bowl. Add the melted butter, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Mix with a fork until you form a smooth glaze. The glaze should be the consistency of runny honey. Keep covered when not using and remix the glaze as needed.
Notes
- Please note that I bake with uncoated aluminum sheet pans that are light in colour. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature to 325 °F (165 °C) to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.
- Use fresh lemons for this recipe. Do not use bottled lemon juice because the flavour isn't good. You need both the zest and the juice for this recipe so make sure to zest your lemons first before juicing them.
- You can try enhancing the lemon flavour in the cookie by adding a few drops of lemon oil or lemon extract, but I have not tested this. Most of the flavour of these lemon cookies comes from the lemony glaze.
Beth says
These are delicious!! They came out wonderfully.
Do you think they could be made with fresh orange juice and zest instead of lemon?
ANGELICA says
Pinning these yummy cookies!
Richard Gilchrist says
There are no equivalent measures in the icing.
Janice says
Fixed it!
Bruce says
Looks very tasty, thanks. BTW, 1 and 1/2 Tbsp is 22.5 ml.
Janice says
You’re right! I was missing a millilitre! Thanks for catching that.
Lucy says
I plan to make after receiving the cookie stamps, but in reading through the recipe, I did not see when to add the lemon zest. I usually mix with the sugar in a food processor prior to creaming, but some people might be a bit confused.
Janice says
Hi Lucy! Thanks so much for mentioning the lemon zest! You can definitely mix it with the sugar in the food processor first, or in this case, I mixed it with the butter, sugar and salt in the first step because I think the mixer plus the sugar granules will help to work the oils and the flavour out of the citrus to infuse the mixture. I'll make sure to add that to the directions.