When I think of Easter and Spring, all things lemon come to mind. I am especially drawn to lemon bars and lemon cookies, lemon meringue pie and even lemon candy (why was the lemon Jolly Rancher so carelessly cast aside?). I am always eager to hunt down a girl scout and beg her for lemon sandwich cookies, too. Thus, I was inspired to make a lemon sandwich cookie of my very own. Although this was a slightly labor intensive cookie, if you are well organized, it should go quite smoothly (or, if you are me, and you find yourself needing ingredients and also in a money saving mode, you will find yourself biking to the nearest grocery store, huffing and puffing and then nearly crying when you realize you have to bike home with a bag of flour in your satchel). These cookies are so sprite and yummy and the cream cheese filling is SO good, you’ll want to carelessly smear it on everything edible in your pantry (Ritz with peanut butter and lemon cream filling?! Yes!).
Lemon Sandwich Cookies
Lemon Sandwich Cookies
(adapted from Martha Stewart)
makes approximately 3.5 dozen cookies
1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup almond meal/flour
2 tbs cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup powdered sugar
zest from 1 lemon
juice from 1/2 lemon
1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temperature
Lemon Cream Filling:
1 and 1/2 cup powdered sugar
8 oz reduced fat (or full fat if you’re brave) cream cheese
zest from 1 lemon
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
~Cream the butter, powdered sugar, salt, and lemon zest and juice until light and fluffy with electric mixer (appx. 3 min). Gradually add flour, almond flour, and cornstarch until forms a dough (you may have to stop the mixer and finish stirring in the flours by hand. Turn out dough (may be crumbly) onto plastic wrap and wrap tightly; refrigerate 30 min.
~Preheat oven to 325 and prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.
~Lay out parchment paper on your surface (I use a marble surface because it keeps the dough cold) and flour the paper. Roll out your dough until 1/8″ thick. Use a 1.5″ fluted round cutter to cut out 6-7 dozen cookies [I happen to own the same cutter Martha used for her version of this cookie, so I know the exact diameter of it]. Use a flat metal spatula, if needed, to lift cookies onto cookie sheets. [you will probably have to do this in several rounds; refrigerating and re-rolling the dough until it is all used up]. Put the cookie sheets with un-cooked cookies into the fridge to re-firm the dough (10 min) before baking. Bake for 10 min or until slightly golden (watch them carefully because they can cook quickly!). [I did mine in shifts; putting a baking sheet of cookies into the fridge while one was in the oven]. Let cookies cool completely on a wire rack before filling.
~To make filling: Cream together with electric mixer: cream cheese, powdered sugar, zest and lemon juice. Use a little less than a teaspoon of filling per sandwich cookie.
~Gobble them up and enjoy! Happy Easter!