Lemon shortbread cookies

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.

Shortbread ratio of ingredients

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.

These lemon shortbread are made with granulated sugar. I like to use granulated sugar because I find it gives the shortbread a more crumbly, coarse texture. 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.

Rolled shortbread that don't spread

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, we 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.

You can also chill the cut-out cookies before baking to ensure that the cookie dough is cold before you pop the pan into the oven. I like to 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.

I preheat the oven while the cookies are chilling. Then when they are firm and the oven is preheated, I can transfer a few to another baking sheet, spacing them out to allow air to circulate between them and then I bake them. I find it's easier to batch the work of rolling, cutting, chilling, and baking.

Adding lemon flavour to cookies

Though the cookie dough is flavoured with both lemon zest and lemon juice, the lemon flavour is mild, though it smells quite citrusy as they bake.

It takes a lot of lemon juice to impart that acidity, and too much lemon juice would ruin the texture of the cookies. The extra liquid would also make the cookies spread as they bake in the oven, even if you chill the cookie dough.

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.

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.

Of course, you don't have to glaze these cookies, but the lemon glaze really makes these cookies shine, both in flavour and in appearance. It's a little extra touch that is easy to do but makes them look even more special.