These lemon curd cookies are delicious lemon snacks for citrus lovers. If you like soft, melt-in-your-mouth, buttery and lemony cookies, you must try this recipe, plus they keep well in the refrigerator for days inside a sealed container. Lemon curd biscuits filled with tangy, silky homemade lemon curd are our favorite spring sweets.
You can make these lemon cookies recipe with homemade or store-bought lemon curd, and you probably have most of the other ingredients on hand.
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🥘 Ingredients
A useful summary of what you need for this lemon curd cookies. Jump to the recipe for quantities.
- Butter – First, measure and slice the unsalted butter into thin layers and leave it on the countertop at room temperature. As a result, it will soften fast. It is important to use butter at room temperature because it mixes well with the other ingredients.
- All-purpose flour – also known as plain flour.
- Powdered sugar – instead of granulated sugar is an additional ingredient -aside from the butter- to make these soft and tender lemon curd cookies.
- Lemon zest – add a rich, fresh citrus flavor to the cookie dough. Be sure to use an organic lemon.
- Vanilla extract – a delicate vanilla flavor and lemon zest is a great combination.
- Lemon curd – for these cookies, we used our homemade lemon curd. Actually, we highly suggest making your own lemon curd from scratch; it easy, and it takes about 10 minutes and only 5 ingredients, and you will have a vibrant, intense flavor creamy lemon version of jam.
Our thumbprint cookie recipe inspired this lemon curd biscuits recipe. Citrus and, in particular, lemon desserts are my husband’s top 5 favorite foods.
I made them for our Swedish fika, and they were a hit! So if you want to make lemon curd thumbprint cookies, substitute the raspberry jam with lemon curd.
🔪 Instructions
1-2 In a medium bowl, mix softened butter, then add the powdered sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla extract.
3-4 With a balloon whisk, mix the softened butter, powdered sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla extract until they are light and fluffy, then add the flour and mix the ingredients with a spatula until the cookie dough comes together.
5. Work the cookie dough with your hands until completely combined. After that, divide dough in half and half again and pat each half into a disc; it’s easier to work with little portions when rolling and shape cookies.
Use plastic wrap for the portion that you keep in the fridge.
6. Roll out one part of the cookie dough about ¼-inch thick (6 mm).
7. Using a 3 inch (7. 5 cm) round cookie cutter, cut out cookies— Gather the scrap dough, roll, and repeat until you have 15 pieces. Place the cut-out cookies onto a lined baking sheet 1 and ½ inches apart.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and put the cookies in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill. While the first half of the cookies are chilling, cut 15 rounds from the remaining dough.
Once you’ve transferred the cookies to a baking sheet, use your smallest cookie cutter (1 inch / 2. 5 cm) to cut out the center and chill for 15 minutes in the refrigerator.
Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, depending on your oven. Make sure not to overbake them.
8. Remove from the oven and cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, and then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
At last, fill each cookie round with 1 teaspoon of lemon curd jam, and dust with powdered sugar the cookies with cutout centers and place with a gentle press on top. Repeat until you have about 15 lemon curd sandwich cookies.
💭 FAQ
Yes, keep these cookies in the fridge. Store them in an airtight container for up to 5 days. Remember to let them come to room temperature before eating.
If you storage them in layers with parchment paper they won’t stick together.
Sure! You can freeze lemon curd cookies with or without lemon curd filling without confectioners sugar. Freeze them in single layers with a sheet of parchment paper in between; thus, they won’t stick together.
Once frozen, transfer them to an airtight container in the freezer for up to two months. Thaw in the fridge overnight before eating.
You can make these lemon curd cookies up to 3 days ahead. After shaping the cookies, store covered in the fridge in layers as suggested above.
When you’re ready to bake the cookies, take out of the fridge and pop them in the preheated oven. Keep in mind that they’ll probably need a little extra time to bake.
You can top or fill so many desserts with lemon curd, like lemon tiramisu, ice cream, no-bake cheesecake bars, pancakes, macarons, tarts, cupcakes, and thumbprint cookies.
💭 Top tip and Variations
Slice the butter into thin layers. Left on the countertop at room temperature, it takes about 20 minutes to soften.
You can prepare homemade Lemon curd ahead. Actually, we have the best results when we make it one day ahead.
Once ready, we let cool the lemon curd completely cover with plastic wrap touching the top of the curd. This helps avoid skin from forming on top.
Transfer the lemon curd to a Mason jar before moving into the fridge until use. For best results use always freshly squeezed lemon juice.
Chill the dough. Shape the cookies first, then chill in the fridge before baking, they will be easy to shape, and as a result, the cookies will spread out more slowly, holding onto their texture.
You can modify this lemon curd cookies recipe by trying orange curd, lime or passion fruit curd. You can also use seedless raspberry jam, or seedless blueberry jam instead of using lemon curd.
These lemon curd biscuits are so lovable and almost addictive that once you start eating them, you can’t stop!
🍽 Equipment Needed
Baking sheets: You’ll need 2 large baking sheets to bake the lemon curd cookies.
Lemon Zester, Mixing bowls: 2 medium bowls are needed for this recipe.
Whisks: for stirring, blending and whisking.
Round Cookie Cutters and Rolling pin to roll out the cookies.
Watch the lemon curd cookie video tutorial here and the lemon curd video recipe here
📖 Recipe
Lemon curd cookies
Soft, melt-in-your-mouth buttery lemon sandwich cookies filled with tangy, silky homemade lemon curd.
Ingredients
- 7 oz (200 g) Unsalted butter (see notes below)
- 2 and ¼ cup (270 g) of All-purpose Flour
- ¾ cup and 1 tablespoon (100 g) Powdered Sugar
- 1 teaspoon of Vanilla extract
- Zest of 1 organic lemon
Filling
- ½ cup (150g) of homemade or store-bought lemon curd.
Instructions
- We recommend having unsalted butter softened first, so it’s ready when you need it, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and set them aside.
- In a medium bowl, place the butter, then put in the powdered sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla extract.
- With a balloon whisk, mix the softened butter, powdered sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla extract until they are light and fluffy, then add the flour and mix the ingredients with a spatula until the cookie dough comes together.
- Work the cookie dough with your hands until completely combined.
- Divide dough in half and half again and pat each half into a disc; it's easier to work with little portions when you are rolling and shaping cookies. Use plastic wrap for the portion that you keep in the fridge.
- Roll out one part of the cookie dough about ¼-inch thick (6mm). Using a 3 inch ((7.5 cm) round cookie cutter, cut out cookies.
Gather the scrap dough, roll, and repeat until you have 15 pieces. Place the cut-out cookies onto a lined baking sheet about 1 and ½ inches apart.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and put the cookies in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes. - While the first half of the cookies are chilling, cut 15 rounds from the remaining dough.
Once you've transferred the cookies to a baking sheet, use your smallest cookie cutter (1 inch / 2.5 cm) to cut out in the center of each one of them. - Chill for 15 minutes while you bake your first batch of cookies in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, depends on your oven. Make sure not to overbake them.
- Remove from the oven, cool the cookies on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes, and then carefully transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat for the second batch.
- Dust with powdered sugar the cookies with a cutout center, then fill each cookie round with one teaspoon of lemon curd jam, and place (with a gentle press) the cookies with cutout center on top.
Repeat until you have about 15 cookies. - Store them in an airtight container for up to 5 days. Remember to let them come to room temperature before eating.
Notes
Slice the butter into thin layers. Left on the countertop at room temperature, it takes about 20 minutes to soften.
You can prepare Homemade Lemon curd ahead. Actually, we have the best results when we make it one day ahead.
Once ready, let cool the lemon curd completely cover with plastic wrap touching the top of the curd. This helps avoid skin from forming on top.
Transfer the lemon curd to a Mason jar before move it into the fridge until use. For best results, always use freshly squeezed lemon juice.
Chill the dough. Shape the cookies first, then chill in the fridge before baking; thus, the cookies will spread out more slowly, holding onto their texture and shape.
You can freeze lemon curd cookies with or without lemon curd filling and without confectioners sugar.
Freeze them in single layers with a sheet of parchment paper in between so they won’t stick together. Once frozen, transfer them to an airtight container in the freezer for up to two months. Thaw in the fridge overnight before eating.
You can make these lemon curd cookies up to 2 days ahead. After shaping the cookies, store covered in the fridge in layers as suggested above. When you're ready to bake the cookies, tug out of the fridge and pop them in the preheated oven.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 15 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 109Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 36mgSodium: 73mgCarbohydrates: 9gFiber: 0gSugar: 7gProtein: 1g
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
Cookies came out fine-very good, but I had to roll out to 1/6 inch and use a 2.5 inch cookie cutter along with a 1 inch cutter to get 15 cookies . I followed weight measurements to make sure it was exact.
Instead of rolling these out can you roll the dough into a log, chill and then slice?
I seem to have better luck this way with sugar cookies to keep their shape. I am making these tonight so we will see. I think I will also toss in some poppy seeds because I love that combo
Hello Debbie,
Sorry for the late reply, how did it go?
Poppy seeds sound like a great idea. We have to try that as well.
Hi, your cup to grams conversions are all wrong. Recipe asks for 2 and 1/4 cups (270g) of all-purpose flour, but 2 and 1/4 cups amounts to 485 grams? 270 grams is 1,14 cups. Again with the powdered sugar, recipe asks for 3/4 cup (100g) of powdered sugar, but 3/4 cup amounts to 150 grams. Please can you check and let me know what the correct measurements are supposed to be. Thanks
Hi Kelly,
thank you for your comment and for pointing out the discrepancy in the conversion measurements. It’s important to note that the weight of ingredients can vary based on a number of factors, such as the type of ingredient, how it is measured, and even the humidity in the air. That’s why it’s always best to use a kitchen scale when baking, as it provides a more accurate measurement of the ingredients you are using. When using a kitchen scale, you can weigh the amount of the ingredient the recipe calls for in grams, rather than trying to convert cups to grams. This will help ensure that your baked goods turn out as intended.
It’s also worth noting that for us, 1 cup of all-purpose flour is approximately 120 grams. However, it’s important to remember that this may vary based on how the flour is measured and other factors. That’s why it’s always best to use a kitchen scale to ensure accuracy in your baking.
I hope this helps and that your baked goods turn out great!