Name: Lemon Shortbread Hearts Cookie Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 36
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: Two cups all purpose flour; ⅓ cup granulated sugar; ⅓ cup confectioners’ sugar; 2 teaspoon lemon zest; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 sticks butter, cubed; Lemon Glaze; 2 cups confectioners’ sugar; 2 tablespoon lemon zest, grated; ⅓ cup fresh lemon juice, from 2 to 3 lemons

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Lemon Shortbread Heart Cookies are thin, crisp and lightly flavored with fresh lemon zest.

The cookies are buttery and delicate and each cookie gets a quick dunk in a lemon glaze that sets firm and glossy as it cools.

heart shaped with lemon glaze cookies on marble background — Lemon shortbread hearts are thin, crispy and delicious. A lemon glaze makes them fancy.

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How To Make Lemon Shortbread Cookies
Shortbread How To Steps
Tips for Success
Storage and Make Ahead Instructions
PIN TO SAVE FOR LATER
Recipe
Cookie Baking Advice
Comments

This is an easy cookie recipe made in a food processor, which makes quick work of the dough. If you don’t have one, no problem. I also include instructions for making the dough with a standard electric mixer.

If you love lemon desserts also try:

How To Make Lemon Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread dough is one of the easiest cookie doughs to work with, especially when you want clean edges from cookie cutters.

Because there’s no baking powder or baking soda, the cookies don’t puff or spread as they bake.

And because shortbread cookies are made without eggs, you can safely serve this dessert to someone with egg allergies.

I’ve made many versions of this dough over the years, and it’s the one I come back to when I want something reliable.

The lemon zest adds flavor and the glaze finishes them without tipping into overly sweet dessert-bar territory.

If you’re in a shortbread mood, you might also like:

Lemon just happens to be a particularly good match here, it brightens the butter and powdered sugar.

Shortbread How To Steps

Combine butter, powdered sugar, lemon zest and flour until a dough forms.

Roll the dough between sheets of parchment and cut into heart shapes or use any cookie cutter you like.

Bake just until set and lightly golden at the edges.

Cool completely before glazing.

While the cookies cool, make a powdered sugar glaze.

Dip the tops in lemon glaze and let set until firm.

Tips for Success

Fresh lemon is essential since you'll need the peel and a bit of juice.

You’ll need a zester to grate the lemon rind. I use a Microplane, which is sharp, easy to handle and useful for things like zesting hard cheese or chocolate shavings to shower over your morning yogurt or banana or coffee.

PRO TIP: Immediately after using a zester, rinse it out with soap and hot water. Citrus rind residue dries quickly and then you're scrubbing forever to get the zester clean.

Don't overwork the dough. Stop the food processor or the hand mixer just as it forms a clump.

Shortbread dough tends to be on the drier side, in part because there's no egg. You may have to scoop up left over bits of dough and pat them into place.

Butter should be cold when making shortbread dough. Forget, momentarily, what you've learned here about room temperature butter for cookies.

Storage and Make Ahead Instructions

You can bake these cookies and store them on the counter in a tin for up to three days. After that, they start to get a bit stale.

But lucky for us, shortbread, like most cookie dough, freezes really well.

Wrap dough in wax paper or plastic wrap. Then tuck it inside a freezer safe container. Freeze for up to three months.

Or freeze the already baked cookies following the same procedure for freezing the dough. The cookies will last, well wrapped, for up to three months in the freezer.

See the ultimate guide for freezing cookies and cookie dough for more information.

PIN TO SAVE FOR LATER

Heart-shaped lemon shortbread cookies with a zesty glaze are arranged on a white surface above bold text and a website URL. — Lemon shortbread hearts are thin, crispy and delicious. A lemon glaze makes them fancy.

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Recipe

Yield: 36 cookies

Lemon shortbread heart cookies are crispy and just kissed with lemon, thanks to fresh lemon zest in the dough. The tops of the cookies are dunked in a lemon glaze, which hardens after about an hour. This is an easy cookie recipe made in your food processor.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Resting time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Ingredients

Two cups all purpose flour
⅓ cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoon lemon zest
¼ teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter, cubed
Lemon Glaze
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoon lemon zest, grated
⅓ cup fresh lemon juice, from 2 to 3 lemons

Instructions

Grate zest.
Cut each stick of butter into slices then dice into cubes.
In the bowl of a food processor-8-cups or larger, pour flour, both sugars and salt. Pulse briefly, 3 to 5 seconds to combine. Add lemon zest and butter cubes. Pulse again, this time for 15 to 20 seconds until the dough has small flecks of butter and has started to combine. Don’t over mix.
Take dough out of the food processor onto wax paper. Gather together with your hands and squish to combine. This is similar to making a pie crust. Don’t overwork the dough but just keep pushing any loose flour together until the dough is well-combined. Flatten into a circle. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap or slide into a plastic bag. Put dough in the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour.
Remove the dough from fridge and let sit for about 15 to 20 minutes until the dough is room temperature.
Put parchment paper on counter and using a rolling pin, roll the dough to about a ¼ inch. Cut with a cookie cutter and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. These cookies won’t spread so you can fit several on one cookie sheet depending on what size cookie cutter you’re using.
Bake at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes.

Make lemon glaze

In a medium-sized bowl or in a stand-mixer, combine two cups confectioners’s sugar and a third of a cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice until opaque and glossy-about two minutes.
Let cookies cool completely before glazing.
To glaze cookies, dip the top of each cookie in the bowl of lemon glaze, give a shake to remove any excess glaze. Put cookies on a rack or on a sheet of wax paper to let dry, which will take about 30 minutes.

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