Description
My lemon curd cookie recipe is quick, easy, and gives the most beautiful vibrant lemon thumbprint cookies. A soft and buttery lemon dough is filled with a silky lemon curd for the perfect lemon cookie.
Ingredients
Scale
Lemon Curd
- One batch of homemade lemon curd, or store bought curd (I used about 170g). Make this ahead of time so it has time to cool.
Lemon Cookie Dough
- 70g powdered sugar, sifted if lumpy
- 6g freshly grated lemon zest (from about 2 lemons)
- 190g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- 190g all-purpose flour
- 20g custard powder or corn starch
- ¼ tsp salt (use a little less if you are using table salt rather than kosher salt)
- Granulated sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°f / 165°c. Line 1-2 baking sheets with parchment paper (I can fit 24 cookies all on one half sheet pan which is 18"x13" /45cm x33cm ).
- Place the powdered sugar into a medium bowl. Add the lemon zest and use your fingertips to rub the zest into the sugar.
- Add the butter and vanilla and mix with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy, stopping to scrape the edges of the bowl to ensure it is all well mixed. This step can also be done in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
- Add the flour, custard powder or corn starch and salt, and mix until combined with the mixer. The dough will be quite soft.
- Using a 1 Tbsp scoop, scoop balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheet. The dough balls will weigh about 18g each.
- Place the granulated sugar in a bowl. Roll each piece of dough into a ball, then roll in the granulated sugar until evenly coated. Place onto the sheet pan, and press down lightly to make it into a hockey puck shape. They do spread a little in the oven so make sure that you leave room for this.
- Using a round teaspoon sized measuring spoon or something with a rounded bottom of a similar size, make indentations in the cookies. If the spoon is sticking, dip it into the sugar first. You can also use your finger if you like but I prefer the uniform shape of something round.
- Fill each cavity you have just created with lemon curd- I do this using a piping bag and mound up a little so that there is lots in each cookie (see image in the blog post).
- Bake the cookies for 13-14 minutes, until they are set around the edges.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and leave to cool completely on the pan - place the pan on a wire rack to ensure that it has enough airflow underneath.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Notes
I don't think these cookies need anything to finish them off but if you wanted to you could give them a drizzle of lemon glaze.