Thin Lemon Cookie Recipe
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Crisp and bursting with lemon flavor, this Thin Lemon Cookie recipe is a bright and sweet treat. With a glaze or lemon cream filling, it’s even more delicious and indulgent.
Thin Lemon Cookies:
A couple of days ago when I was making this Thin Lemon Cookie recipe, I shared the process on my Instagram stories. It was exciting to see that lots of you love lemon desserts as much as I do. It may because I am eagerly anticipating the start of spring, but that tart-meets-sweet flavor is just too good!
One of the reasons I’m sharing this recipe today is that it’s a prelude to another lemon cookie recipe. These Thin Lemon Cookies are the base for my Lemon Sandwich Cookies with Lemon Cream Filling. If you think these Thin Lemon Cookies sound good, wait until you try them with a cream filling! (I’ll be sharing the Lemon Sandwich Cookie recipe with you in the coming days.)
If lemon is your jam, this Thin Lemon Cookie recipe is for you. It includes concentrated lemon juice (which you make) and lots of lemon zest. Heavenly!
Let me walk you through the process.
How to Make Thin Lemon Cookies:
To make these Thin Lemon Cookies, start by preparing a lemon syrup. Cook down 1/2 cup of lemon juice to about 2 tablespoons. This makes for syrup with a wonderfully concentrated lemon flavor. This syrup then gets melted into butter.
While that cools, you start preparing the rest of the lemon cookie dough.
In one bowl combine all of the dry ingredients. Set aside. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Add the cooled lemon juice and butter mixture to your wet ingredients.
Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix until just combined.
Then chill this dough for a bit. (It will be much easier to work with when it’s cold.) Once the dough is chilled, you’re ready to cut out the cookies. I chose to roll out my dough since I wanted a more decorative cookie.
A small note here: This dough it a little tricky to roll out and cut with cookie cutters. You’ll need time, patience, and basic cookie cutting skills. If you want to make things a bit easier, divide the dough into two portions and form it into logs with about 2.5-inch diameter. Chill the dough logs and then cut them into 1/8-inch slices.
Whichever way you decide to cut out your cookies, the resulting rounds get baked for 6-7 minutes. Keep an eye on them as they tend to brown rather quickly.
Once baked, your cookies are ready to be enjoyed. You can also pack them in an airtight container to save them for later.
As you might guess, these easy-to-make cookies are loaded with flavor. They are delicious served with a cup of tea or coffee.
Looking for more lemon-inspired recipes? Try these:
- Frosted Lemon Cookies
- Lemon and Blueberry Bread
- Lemon Curd Cheesecake Tarts
- Sparkling Mint Lemonade
- Lemon Yogurt Cake
If you wish, you can make the cookies a bit more decadent with a lemon glaze. Or you might serve them with raspberry jam. In an upcoming post, I’ll show you how to turn these Thin Lemon Cookies into Lemon Sandwich cookies.
I hope you enjoyed this post and give this Thin Lemon Cookie recipe a try!
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Thin Lemon Cookies Recipes:
Thin Lemon Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter cubed
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons lemon zest zest from 2 lemons
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Begin by heating the lemon juice over high heat*. Bring the lemon juice to a boil; then reduce the heat to medium. Cook until you have approximately 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until melted. Set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the egg, egg yolk, sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla. Once the butter and lemon juice mixture is slightly cool, stir it in. Then, add the wet ingredients to the prepared dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
- Cover and chill for 45 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F
- On a floured surface, roll out the dough (1/3 at a time) to a 1/8-inch thickness. Use a 2.5-inch round cookie cutter to cut out cookies. Place the rounds on a parchment-lined baking sheet about an inch apart.
- Bake the cookies for 6-7 minutes or until they just start to lightly brown. (Keep an eye on them as they brown rather quickly.) Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack.
- Once cooled completely, the cookies can be stored in an airtight container.
My son makes his own lemon shortbread cookies, and I just started baking and saw this. I do NOT cook nor did I bake prior to his. I can honestly say THESE ARE FANTASTIC. One who usually burns water actually made these last week and they were such a big hit at home and at the office, that I just made 2 more batches.
I am now going through all of your recipes to see what I should make for dinner!
Thank you for making ME the baker in the family (husband is a chef).
There’s definitely a typo in this recipe.
I made with 1/2c butter rather than the listed 1 1/2c butter, and they turned out perfectly and as described.
Seeing all the other comments here, that’s definitely the issue.
But when I say they turned out perfectly, I mean perfectly. Delicious and delicate. I cut them into flower shapes and sandwiched them with blueberry jam in between. Would definitely rate 5 stars if the recipe were accurate.
pretty disappointed. put a lot of love and effort into these and no matter how much they were chilled prior to baking, they just spread apart into a pooled mess. perhaps there is too much butter and sugar? not sure how the image perfectly cut out came to pass. based on other comments and my own experience, this recipe didn’t hold up.
Can’t make these without knowing a temperature. Especially since they seem to spread too much per other comments.
My apologies. Temperature has been added.
xo Michael
Had to freeze the logs before I was able to slice. Cookies spread a LOT and are way too delicate to turn into a sandwich cookie. Effectively crumbles on contact. Fantastic flavor but a huge waste of time and ingredients. Wanted to give these as a gift but couldn’t. Disappointed to say the least.
Wonderful lemon flavor! Very difficult to shape into rounds. Due to high butter content, cookies spread out into large misshaped ovals. Suggest freezing the dough.
At what temperature we should bake them and which mode of baking to be used?
Tried a non-dairy version, substituting veggie oil for butter. Had to compensate for the lack of structure the butter provides w/ a little extra flour, but just got a drier “tea cake” style cookie that was still a hit w/ its mild lemon flavor! I imagine the original is heavenly w/ the touch of butter flavor as well. Thanks for a great recipe!
I love that you made this recipe your own! Thanks for sharing!
xo Michael
I haven’t even tried these yet and I can already taste them. I’m so excited to make a batch and I’m even more excited to see your follow-up recipe for the lemon creme filling! PS…And as always, thank you for including the nutritional facts. These cookies aren’t nearly as bad as I thought they’d be! (But the addition of the filling may change that! Hehe)