Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies – Sugar Spun Run

These gentle and chewy lemon poppy seed cookies have the identical vivid and buttery taste as their muffin counterparts! My recipe skips the extracts and synthetic flavors and will get its taste from 100% actual lemons as a substitute. Recipe features a how-to video!

What’s to Love about these Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

• Genuine taste. My recipe makes use of 100% REAL lemons to get a contemporary, tart, and actual lemon taste. That’s proper, no extract, no pudding mixes, no emulsions, simply the real-deal you could truly style.
• Fast & simple. The recipe is straightforward and simple with solely half-hour of chilling required.
• Make forward choices. The dough may be made as much as 3 days upfront.
• Spectacular on any dessert desk. With their vivid lemon-yellow colour (which, ahem, I’ll point out once more is completely genuine and from the lemons — no meals coloring!) and delicate poppyseed freckles, they’re so fairly and ideal for spring or summer time!

There’s one thing delightfully distinctive concerning the combo of vivid lemon taste and crisp poppy seeds. In case you’ve loved my lemon poppy seed muffins or scones, you’re in for a deal with! Lemon poppy seed cookies have the identical vivid and sunny taste, however in gentle (actually, actually gentle!) and chewy cookie type.

It was crucial to me that these cookies have a phenomenal lemon taste with out the necessity for extract or synthetic flavors. Additionally necessary that they NOT be cakey. In case you’ve adopted my pumpkin cookie or banana cookie saga, you realize that including moisture (there within the type of pumpkin or banana, right here within the type of lemon juice) can shortly flip a gentle cookie right into a cakey one.

I took some very deliberate steps with at the moment’s recipe to make sure it had all of the traits of a superb, chewy cookie, beginning with the components.

What You Want

Since we aren’t utilizing any fancy flavors or extracts right here, you’ll probably have all of those components available already. Don’t you like when that occurs?!

• Softened butter. I take advantage of unsalted butter and add salt myself, however you possibly can simply use salted butter and skip the extra salt. I’ve a whole publish on why I take advantage of unsalted butter vs. salted butter, in case you’d like to grasp the reasoning behind that selection.
• Lemons. We are going to use contemporary lemon zest and juice (contemporary lemon juice is important right here!) for max lemon taste. All the time zest your lemons earlier than juicing, and be sure you don’t zest to date that you simply attain the bitter white pith–we solely need the skinny yellow pores and skin! I discover I sometimes want about two lemons for this recipe. Be sure they’re contemporary, not ones the place the pores and skin is skinny and drying from sitting in your counter too lengthy.
• Egg yolks. To scale back extra moisture within the dough, particularly since we’re including lemon juice, I made a decision to skip the egg whites and use solely egg yolks (which additionally felt like an acceptable nod towards lemon curd, which solely makes use of egg yolks, too). This provides our cookies a beautiful yellow colour as nicely. It can save you your egg whites for meringue cookies, pavlova, or macarons.
• Poppy seeds. A necessary ingredient! Not solely do poppy seeds add a pleasant crunch to those cookies, they add enjoyable a visible aspect too. Some folks prefer to soak their poppyseeds earlier than baking, however I don’t discover it obligatory. I speak extra about this under.

Now what you don’t want: vanilla extract! The omission of vanilla extract from this recipe was completely intentional. Sadly, it strongly subdued the contemporary lemon taste, paradoxically making the cookies extra bland! Whereas I’m personally a vanilla fan, we’ll skip it right here.

SAM’S TIP: There are such a lot of methods to zest a lemon, however my favourite technique for this recipe is to make use of a microplane. Right here’s a information on how to zest a lemon with a number of completely different instruments, in case you want a refresher!

Keep in mind, that is simply an summary of the components I used and why. For the complete recipe please scroll all the way down to the underside of the publish!

The right way to Make Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

Cookie Dough

We’ll begin by beating a wholesome quantity of lemon zest into butter and sugar. This step brings out the oils of the lemon zest and emulsifies each little bit of lemon taste into the dough, similar to in my lemon cookies. We’ll add a little bit of contemporary lemon juice too, only for good measure. And sure, it needs to be freshly squeezed!

1. Beat the butter, sugar, and lemon zest collectively till gentle and fluffy.
2. Stir within the egg yolks and lemon juice till nicely mixed.
3. Whisk collectively the dry components in a separate bowl.
4. Progressively add the dry components to the moist components till mixed. Cowl the dough with plastic and let it chill within the fridge for at the very least half-hour.

5. Scoop and roll the chilled dough into 1.5 Tablespoon balls. Place 2″ aside on parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 11-12 minutes at 350F.
6. Let the cookies cool for at the very least 10 minutes earlier than including the glaze.

Lemon Glaze

The cherry on prime, this glaze is bursting with taste. Don’t skip it!

7. Whisk collectively the powdered sugar and lemon juice, beginning with simply 1 ½ tablespoons of juice. Add extra if wanted till you attain the suitable consistency; the ribbon of glaze that falls off your whisk ought to maintain its form for a number of seconds earlier than dissolving again into the remainder of the glaze.
8. Drizzle glaze over the cookies and let agency up earlier than having fun with. In case you’d prefer to sprinkle some further poppy seeds over the glaze whereas it’s nonetheless moist, be happy!

SAM’S TIP: Cease baking your cookies when the perimeters are simply beginning to flip a lightweight golden brown for gentle and chewy outcomes. The facilities should look a bit of underdone, however they may proceed cooking on the baking sheet outdoors the oven.

Incessantly Requested Questions

These cookies could be so enjoyable at a tea social gathering or spring child bathe!

Take pleasure in!

Let’s bake collectively! I’ll be strolling you thru all of the steps in my written recipe and video under! In case you do this recipe, you’ll want to tag me on Instagram, and it’s also possible to discover me on YouTube and Facebook

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