Over the last week, the weather in Portland has been incredible.
I’m talking warm, sunny, blue skies, birds chirping and people either suffering from sunburn or getting a head start on their tans.
Lucky for me, I’m in the tan category 😉
All this summer-like weather inspired me to make something light and bright for this week’s post. I had strawberries sitting in my fridge, begging to be used, some lemons on the counter screaming to be zested, and so these Strawberry Lemonade cookie sandwiches were born!
The cookie is kind of confused.
It’s like a cross between shortbread and a sugar cookie infused with lemon for a little something extra. Flaky, buttery and lemony. If it didn’t taste so good I’d be upset that it couldn’t decide what kind of cookie it wanted to be.
Fortunately they taste good and come together in no time, so both my taste buds and knee were happy.
The buttercream is delicious and also really easy to make. It’s the same buttercream used in my strawberry macarons and it really adds a little burst of flavour and complements the lemon perfectly.
We also have a lemon glaze on the cookies because why not? It’s two ingredients, you can make it in 30 seconds and makes the cookies look pretty.
I’m all about pretty cookies.
So we’ve got the perfect spring/summer cookies which we need more than ever in Portland because normal April weather is returning, which means grey clouds and some rain.
The warm sun was a nice tease though.
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
- 3 tsp. lemon juice
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- Zest of 1 lemon
Lemon Glaze:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice
Strawberry Buttercream:
- 1/2 cup diced strawberries
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp. heavy cream
Instructions
Cookies:
- Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl. Add the egg yolk and lemon juice and stir to combine. Sift the flour and salt into the bowl and mix everything together until combined. Add the lemon zest and combine again.
- Divide dough into two disks, wrap in plastic and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and roll out your dough 1/8"-1/4" thick. Use a cookie cutter to make circle cookies and place on prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 8 minutes, until edges are light brown, and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- While cooling, whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice for your glaze. Once cookies are cool, drizzle the glaze over them.
Buttercream:
- Puree the strawberries and set aside.
- Cream the butter, then add powdered sugar and beat until combined. Pour in the strawberry puree and mix together. Stir in the heavy cream. If you need to thicken the buttercream, add more powdered sugar.
- To make cookie sandwiches, pipe buttercream onto bottom side of a cookie and sandwich with another cookie. Put in the fridge to set.
