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š Why you’ll love this recipe
A perfect balance of flavors. These cookies are the perfect balance of tart and sweet. The lemon flavor is intense, but it’s offset by the sweetness of the powdered sugar coating. Spare lemons? Make these lemon curd thumbprint cookies or lemon blueberry cookies. Perfectly melts in your mouth. Ā These cookies are so soft and delicate that they literally melt in your mouth.Ā Ā Easy to make. This recipe just needs a handful of pantry-friendly ingredients!
š Ingredients and notes
To make these lemon coolers, you need butter, granulated sugar, egg yolk, baking powder, salt, vanilla extract, cornstarch, all-purpose flour, fresh lemon juice, fresh lemon zest, and powdered sugar. P.S., you can make powdered sugar by just blitzing granulated sugar in a powerful blender.
Notes and Variations
Substitute all-purpose flour. While all-purpose flour is ideal, you can use cake flour in a pinch. Just know that your cookies will be more tender because cake flour has a lower protein content. You can also use a 1:1 gluten-free baking mix (like this one) and retain the flavor and texture of the cookies. Choice of butter. If you want to make this dish dairy-free, vegan butter is a great substitute for regular butter. I have used both salted butter and unsalted butter in this recipe, and they both taste great. Other toppings: You can take these lemon coolers up a notch by adding white chocolate chips or candied lemon to the dough, or brushing them with a lemon glaze! Other Lemon Substitute. Meyer lemons are great for this recipe, just keep in mind that they have a strong lemon flavor and can be a bit flowery. A lime can also work well as a substitute as it gives the lemon coolers a great tart taste.Ā You can also skip lemons and use lemon-flavoring (e.g., KoolAid, etc.)
P.S., If you are looking for some vegan cookies instead, check out my awesome list of vegan cookies!
š How to make lemon coolers
To bake lemon coolers, preheat the oven to 350Ā°F for 10 minutes and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut butter into small cubes. Cream together the vanilla, salt, fresh lemon zest, granulated sugar, and butter in a large bowl.Ā You want to get a nice mixture without any lumps. It’s important that the butter is not too warm or too cold for this reason. Mix together with a hand mixer or an electric mixer until all the ingredients are well integrated. You can also just use a spatula, but you’ll need some elbow juice! Add the fresh lemon juice and egg yolk and keep mixing for another two minutes or until they integrate. In another bowl, combine the remaining dry ingredients: baking powder, cornstarch, and flour until they are fully integrated. If you don’t want to do this step, you can also add the dry ingredients to a sieve, and just sift them into the wet ingredients. Combine the dry mixture with the wet butter mixture and integrate both until a smooth dough forms.Ā You can do this step using your hands or a spatula. Now take the dough to the fridge for about 1 hour. Donāt skip this step as it will make it easier to scoop later! Scoop 1 heaping teaspoon of dough and shape it into a ball (it will spread a bit on the oven), then place it on the baking sheet and do the same with the rest of the dough. Leave 2 inches between each ball. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until they start to get brown on the edges. We donāt want them to look golden brown but they donāt have to look raw either. Just a little puffy in the center. Let the cookies sit on a cooling rack. Then toss each cookie in powdered sugar. Enjoy your lemon coolers!
š©š½āš³Top Tips to Make the Best Lemon Coolers
š“ Serving and storage suggestions
If you store them in an airtight container, they will remain delicious for 5 days. But let’s be honest, they’re probably going to be eaten within the day.
Use real lemons and zest. This tip is two-fold. Using real lemons (versus bottled juice) helps release all of the flavorful oils in the lemon skin which makes for a more intense lemon flavor in your cookies, while lemon zest will give your cookies an extra zing that will have people coming back for more. Use room temperature ingredients.Ā Bringing eggs and butter to room temperature will ensure that the dough mixes evenly! Take the butter out at least an hour before you’re about to make the dough. If you forget, no worries! Microwave some water in a glass, dump the water out and then place the glass upside down over the stick of butter. This will help soften the butter! Donāt overmix the dough.Ā Over-mixing develops the gluten in the flour, which can result in dry cookies! Don’t over-bake them. Make sure to take them out of the oven while they’re still nice and soft in the center. They may look slightly underdone but trust me, they’ll continue to bake as they cool on the baking sheet! Let them cool completely before fingerprinting them with powdered sugar. Just wait until they’re completely cooled before running a sifter filled with powdered sugar over the top of them so you don’t end up with clumps of sugar in your final product. Chill the dough!Ā Chilling the dough will ensure that cookies don’t spread out too much. After making cookie dough, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for a few hours, if you can.
Unbaked lemon coolers can be stored in the freezer for 3 months by simply wrapping them in plastic wrap and placing them in freezer-safe containers. Before serving simply let them defrost overnight, and proceed with baking instructions! Baked lemon coolers can be frozen too! First, let them cool completely after baking, Then, put them in freezer-safe containers - this will keep them fresh for up to 2 months! When you’re ready to eat the cookies, defrost them at room temperature and enjoy serving them with your favorite beverage! If you want to try more exciting cookies, make sure to check these out: If you tried this recipe, don’t forget to comment and rate! āāāāā
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