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Lemon-Lime Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies – a Lime infused Shortbread Cookie filled with homemade Lemon Curd and topped with a simple Lime Icing – a bright summer treat!
We have out-of-town company this week and had a family get-together to grill out and show off both our new grand-babies. I made these cookies to serve for dessert and they were a big hit. When I finally got around to asking if anybody liked the cookies (required taste-tester feedback) I was told that our son had already eaten about 10 of them! Apparently he really liked them! These cookies have a bright lemony flavor similar to a great lemon bar, or slice of lemon ice box pie.
The simple shortbread dough is made with just a few ingredients then rolled into 1-inch balls.
Try not to flatten the cookies with a big thumbprint, but instead make a hole straight down into the dough. Fill each with the lemon curd and bake!
A simple icing is made with fresh lime juice and confectioners’ sugar and drizzled on top for that little something extra.
I piped the icing on with a pastry bag and decorating tip but it’s not necessary. You can use a small baggie with a tiny hole cut in the corner and give it the traditional thumbprint zig zag pattern. I thought the flowers look like summer – bright and sunny!
Lemon and lime are a great combination but you could use all lemon and they would be just as good.
The cookie dough is not overly sweet so the addition of jam or lemon curd seals the deal. These cookies can be made with your favorite jam or try our easy recipe for homemade Lemon Curd.
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Lemon-Lime Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookie dough:
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste, or pure vanilla extract
- juice of ½ fresh lime
- zest of 1 small lime
- dash of salt
- 2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons
- ½ - ⅔ cup lemon curd (See NOTES for link)
For the glaze:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- juice of ½ fresh lime
Instructions
- Combine the butter, granulated sugar, vanilla bean paste, salt, lime zest and the juice of ½ a lime in a large mixing bowl. Beat on medium speed until the mixture is creamy. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl with a spatula and blend again. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour in 3 parts. Scrape the sides and blend another 30 seconds. Cover the mixing bowl and refrigerate the dough for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls and place 2-inches apart on the prepared pan. Make an indention in the center of each cookie with a small finger - pushing straight down trying not to flatten the dough ball. The edges of the dough may crack slightly. Push the cracked dough back together to make a smooth ball. Filled each ball with a heaping ¼ teaspoon of lemon curd.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to rest on the pan for a minute or two before transferring to a cooling rack. Cool completely before icing.
- For the glaze combine the 1 cup powdered sugar and the juice of ½ lime and whisk until smooth. Thicken or thin as desired and drizzle over cooled cookies. Allow the icing to fully set then refrigerate leftovers.
Recipe Notes
- Feel free to omit the lime and use lemon zest and juice instead.
- Homemade Lemon Curd is very simple to make and delicious served on pound cake, angel food cake, muffins, biscuits or scones.
- Original base shortbread recipe adapted from Land-O-Lakes.
Nutrition
Here are a few more cookie recipes you might enjoy:
- Pistachio Shortbread Cookies
- Lemon Meltaways
- Milk Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Shortbread Cookies ~ from The View from Great Island
- Orange, Lemon and Lime Citrus Cookies ~ from Sugary Sweets
I used the following tools to make these delightful, cookies! (Each photo is clickable)
And finally, we’re off to do the sight-seeing thing in the Washington D.C. area. We love to entertain our guests with the amazing history of the area. There is so much to do from small town antiquing in Virginia, touring civil war battlefields, visiting the homes of the many presidents from Virginia, and all the way to the museums and monuments of Washington D.C. Happy Monday!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Tricia
Kat
These cookies are delicious! I did not have trouble with them flattening – in fact, some flattened too much. (I did use Land ’o Lakes butter.) To help them retain a better shape after the first pan, I made the balls and for the imprint I used the bowl of a round 1/4 teaspoon and also chilled them again after that before baking. I only got 3 dozen cookies from the recipe made into 1-inch balls and they only took 12-13 minutes to bake, turning the pan halfway through.
Tricia Buice
Thanks for making these cookie Kat. Such a great little bite of summer sunshine. Enjoy and thanks for your insights and suggestions.
Sue
The first batch didn’t flatten so I flattened the balls a bit on the second batch and they came out much better but still not as flat as the pictures here.
I think the flattening would work better with Land O Lakes butter which I believe has oil in it even if it doesn’t say it does on the label. I have found that it makes my cookies spread too much with other recipes so I only use store brand butters but I would try Land O Lakes with this one next time to test my theory.
The flavor is really good.
Tricia Buice
Thanks for the feedback Sue.
Wendy
I’m thinking of making these for a work potluck. Do the cookies stack well after decorated?
Tricia Buice
Hi Wendy. They do okay but the middle lemon curd is sticky. I would put them on a platter if possible then cover with plastic wrap. Enjoy! Hope everybody loves them.
Suzi
Can you make these ahead and freeze?
Tricia Buice
Hi Suzi – yes you can, but I would wait to ice/decorate the cookies until after they are thawed. Enjoy 🙂
Ingrid
Fantastic coockies ! Greetings from Norway.
Tricia Buice
Greetings to you Ingrid! Thanks so much 🙂
Sara
I’m not sure what I did wrong, followed the recipe EXACTLY, but they looked horrible. They didn’t flatten and the “small finger hole” was an empty cave – as all the lemon curd rolled down the sides. Taste was still amazing, though. Second batch, I flattened the dough balls and used a regular “thumbprint “ and they turned out much better. Definitely a keeper – just had to modify technique
Tricia Buice
Glad the second batch turned out okay for you Sara. These cookies have a great flavor and terrific texture. Not sure what happened and it seems odd that you had to flatten them. Thanks for the feedback.
Katie
I don’t usually comment on recipes, but after making these cookies for my sister’s bridal shower, I had to. These are DELICIOUS! They turned out as good as I had hoped. Great directions. I will be making them again… SOON!
Tricia Buice
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment Katie – it made my day! I love these little cookies and so glad you did too. Thanks again – it’s readers like you that make it worth the effort!
Vickie
do these cookies freeze well?
Tricia Buice
Hi Vickie – I have not tried freezing these cookies so I’m not sure. Sorry
Julie
In the process of baking off the last of the dough I made for these. The flavor’s good, but I will say I don’t understand how you got the flat cookies in the photos using the method of indenting them described in the recipe. I followed it to a T, and my first batch -using my pinky and pushing straight down- came out more rounded and domed. The second batch was better because I did the more traditional slight-finger-squish method, but they’re still not like the photos. This third batch I wound up actually flattening them into little pucks and then indenting with my finger, so hopefully at least those come out with a more workable surface area for the flower frosting.
Overall, it’s a good shortbread cookie recipe -I’ve already eaten like five- but as far as thumbprints go, shortbread doesn’t really spread a lot so you have to flatten the balls and do a bit of a squish with your index finger.