Lemon Shortbread Cookies Recipe: How to Make Shortbread

Lemon shortbread cookies are crumbly buttery cookies brightened with fresh lemon flavor. Likely developed in Europe during the late Middle Ages, shortbread cookies derive from twice-baked bread in Scotland, which eventually swapped yeast for sugar. In the 1500s, similar treats were called “shortcakes” in England.

Shortbread’s crumbly texture is due to the lack of gluten formation in the dough. Gluten strands form when you mix and knead flour with water, giving bread and other baked goods structure and a chewy texture. Pulsing flour and butter together in a food processor—rather than mixing the dough in a stand mixer—and then pressing it into a pan yields cookies with pockets of butter.

Lemon shortbread cookies are bright, with just the right amount of tartness. To ensure that you hit the right balance between puckering-sour lemon flavor and cloying sweetness, follow these tips:

1. 1. Zest the lemon skin, not the pith. The pith—the thin white membrane between the flesh of the lemon and its peel—is bitter and unpalatable. Only zest the bright lemon skin itself, and avoid over-zesting or incorporating any pith in with your zest.
2. 2. Multiply the lemon flavor. Use fresh lemon juice, zest, and lemon extract to get the most vibrant lemon flavor. Another great trick is to mix plain granulated sugar with lemon zest by rubbing them together with your fingers to release some of the oils in the zest. Rubbing sugar and zest together helps the sugar take on a lemon-forward aroma and flavor and takes the cookies to a whole new level. (This trick also works with vanilla beans.)
3. 3. Play with mix-ins. Lemon shortbread is an excellent base for mix-ins like mini white chocolate chips, dried lavender flowers, fresh rosemary, or pink peppercorns. Alternatively, capture the flavor of lemon poppy seed muffins by incorporating poppy seeds into the dough.
4. 4. Make cut-out cookies. Crumbly shortbread dough often gets pressed into a square or round baking pan, then cut into wedges or rectangles after baking. If you want to cut out the cookies, form the dough into a disc, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for twenty minutes. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough out on a floured surface and cut out your favorite shapes using cookie cutters. Bake the cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and cool them on a wire rack. Since shaping and rolling develop the gluten in the dough, cut-out shortbreads will be slightly less crumbly than the pressed-in version and more like a butter cookie or sugar cookie.