Lets begin with why you should make these lemon sandwich cookies: The cookies themselves are soft and crumbly, the flavor is lemony but not tart. Its sweetness is refined, not over the top and the filling is a lemon cream cheese frosting that adds a rich creaminess to the ensemble to tie it altogether.
Lemon Sandwich Cookies
This marks the first of a few holiday cookies to come. I realize I’m a little late getting started on this year. If you recall last year I started the season with these Coffee Cake Cookies and then moved on to these Pumpkin Pie Cookies and then on to a few others. This year it seems like being late is the theme for everything.
But things are letting up finally, the book is almost finished. Yay, to that because it has been crazy busy and crazy tough developing and testing recipes, running a blog and working full time. And, oh yeah – the family, so we’ve all been wearing wrinkled clothes and maybe eating cereal for more than just breakfast.
Lemon Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
Lemon spritz cookies
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup confectioner sugar
- 1 large egg, plus one egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon oil (or 1 teaspoon of lemon extract)
- 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, plus 2 tablespoons
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
Filling
- 1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup confectioner sugar, sifted
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon oil (or 1 teaspoon of lemon extract)
- Confectioner sugar for dusting
Instructions
Preparation
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line bake sheet with parchment paper.
To make lemon spritz cookie
- Cream butter with granulated and confectioner sugar until light and fluffy. Add in egg and beat until combined. Add in egg yolk and beat until combined. Add in lemon oil (or extract) and lemon zest beat and beat until combined.
- Whisk cornstarch and flour together. Add flour mixture into wet mixture and light beat until combined.
- Transfer dough to cookie press or a pastry bag fitted with a open star tip. Pipe dough in a circular motion working from the outside towards the center. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes or until bottoms turn golden.
To make filling
- Beat cream cheese and butter until combined. Add in remaining ingredients and beat until well combined and smooth.
Assembly
- Spread a teaspoon and a half of filling on underside of one lemon spritz cookie and place a second lemon spritz cookie bottom side down on top of filling.
Notes
A few notes:
- The cookies are basically a spritz recipe, so if you have a cookie press you can use that to push your dough through for any decorative finish. If you don't have a cookie press, fit a pastry bag with an open star tip to pipe and shape the cookies like you see in the pictures. Alternately, you can gently roll the dough into 1/2 inch balls.
- If you can't find lemon oil, lemon extract will work. Keep in mind the extract contains alcohol so it will cause the wet mix to slightly seperate and appear somewhat curdled. Do not over beat hoping it will become homogenized, it actually makes it worse.
- Your palate your preference, so choose a filling that suits your taste. Any buttercream frosting will work or to stay on the fruity side try using a jam or curd.
- The lemon sandwich cookies can be made unassembled (without filling) three days advance. Store cookies in an airtight container to keep fresh. Fully assembled cookies can be made one day ahead.
Naomi they are so delicate and beautiful…perfect with the lemon incorporated in the cookie and the filling. I bet they are just bursting with lemon flavor!
Gorgeous looking cookies!Im going to make these with my 4 year old boy tomorrow- we love our lemon cookies!
Quick question…Have LOTS of lemons on my trees and dont want to buy extract if I dont have too. I do realise that the extract would give the cookie a stronger lemon flavour but could I substitue with fresh lemon juice somehow??
Lemon is my all time favorite. I will most definitely be making these. Thanks for sharing!
Love these cookies! I’m a total sucker for any sandwich cookies- definitely going to have to pull out the cookie press!
Gorgeous pictures too!
Love love love that you swirled these instead of the typical dollop for sandwich cookies. They’re so pretty!
As always, these are just gorgeous!
By the way, nothing wrong with eating cold cereal for more than just breakfast. Not that I would ever do that. No. Never. 😉
Him,
I would kick up the lemon zest to two tablespoons and add in one tablespoon of lemon juice.
They look so pretty! I wouldn’t mind one, and by one I mean ten 🙂
I love these. Lemon is one of my absolute favorite flavors and it’s so underused in the fall/winter months.
My mouth is watering. These are gorgeous, Naomi!
I love how festive this look, I am adding them to my Christmas list of cookies! 🙂
These cookies are so MOIST! And the perfect balance of sweetness. So YUMMY, filling is a lemon cream cheese frosting that adds a rich creaminess.
Congratulations on almost being finished with the book! Sounds crazy. And these seem like Christmas cookies to me which means that you are definitely not behind with holiday cookies. 😉 They look great!
So so delicious looking! Anything sandwiched with buttercream is a win in my book!
I love how these cookies are cumbly, buttery and melts in the mouth. Definitely a great festive cookie treat, or any other day would be perfect too. I can’t wait to start on my festive baking which has been put off a lot of times due to crazy work. CONGRATS on almost finishing the book. I sure can’t wait to buy one as soon they ship across the Pacific ;). Cheers!
Gorgeous cookies, I love anything lemon!
Stunning! I adore lemon desserts.
Sandwich cookies are one of my favorite treats. I love those, they look so elegant and delicious! I baked spritz cookies on Sunday and was thinking what I could sandwich in between! Perfect filling.
Aww now these are just pretty!
Love these cookies! And your styling Naomi! I need to make these soon!
Bakersroyale strikes again! Oh my gosh, I’ve got soooooo many recipes in my idea list from your website. Everything looks so so fantastic.
These are a definite addition.
Trish
http://jellybonesblog.blogspot.com
I love these, Naomi. The swirl is just perfection.
Beautiful photos and perfectly iced. Your web site is one of my favs.
these sound absolutely delicious & so delicate! I also make a lemon cookie for the winter holidays (usually lemon bars) but for some reason I’ve always associated lemon desserts with Springtime – so for this coming Easter I think I will try to make these for dessert. Thank you so much for sharing your recipe with all of us!
Naomi, I am a new follower of yours and have made two of your recipes so far and both were outstanding hits at work. I made the Dark chocolate cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting. The cupcakes were all gone within less than an hour. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! Thanks to you, I wont the cupcake contest, both for taste, and presentation! Amazing!
Today, I had a couple of friends over for a late brunch and I made the Lemon sandwich cookies. WOW WOW WOW…and have to write another WOW. Not only were the cookies beautiful to look at, but delicious!!!! My friends were so impressed, and I’ve you to think once again! Your blog has become my “go to” blog for scrumptious recipes to entertain my colleagues, friends and family! BRAVA…you are my MUSE!!!!!!
Where is the recipe on this page?
Just saw it!
These cookies and the filling are tasty, however the dough was exceptionally hard to pipe onto the cookie sheet. Maybe I should add a touch of milk in the future.
Agree–hard to pipe, but so pretty. Maybe if I let it get a little warmer? Otherwise, I’m going to have he-man muscles!
These look perfect – not that I would expect anything else. It’s strange to see this recipe as I was whipping up a lemon cream cheese icing myself last night.
The tips and hints are invaluable. Thanks very much for such a beautiful post.