Lemon Glazed Almond Cookies

Spring is here! Our winter quarter classes wrapped up yesterday and I’m ready for some sunshine. Spring in the Pacific Northwest can be lovely, or it can be rainy and chilly. So far this spring has offered both. I’m ready for some baking to reflect the season. Lemon, strawberry, etc. I had pinned these cookies a while ago, where they were meant as a Christmas cookie. They certainly would work for Christmas, but I changed the glaze to a lemon glaze to make them more springy.

The original recipe from Pillsbury called for a roll of refrigerated sugar cookie dough. I typically make a batch of sugar cookie dough instead, as sugar cookie dough is very easy to make and uses ingredients that I already have on hand. I used almond flour in place of ground whole almonds. My almond flour was finer than almonds you grind yourself. I think the ground almonds would add some more texture to the cookies, but the almond flour worked fine.

You typically refrigerate sugar cookie dough, and I wasn’t sure if I needed to do that with these cookies or not. After shaping the dough, I refrigerated the cookies for about 10 minutes. Another batch I didn’t refrigerate at all, and in baking it made no difference. I didn’t have any sanding/sparkling sugar, which would have made these cookies look more fancy, but that’s ok. My husband doesn’t like crunchy sugar, so better for him! These have a subtle almond flavor, and I like the pairing with the lemon glaze. Happy Spring!

Lemon Glazed Almond Cookies

1 cup butter, room temperature

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

¾ teaspoon almond extract

1 egg

2-1/2 cup flour

¼ cup ground almonds

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

¼ teaspoon salt

Sugar or Sanding Sugar

1 cup powdered sugar

2-3 tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, almond extract, and egg. Mix on medium until the mixture comes together. Add the flour, ground almonds, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Mix on low until the dough comes together.

Shape the dough into balls, using 1 tablespoon of dough for each cookie. Roll each cookie in sugar and place on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until set and barely browned on the edges.

Cool completed before glazing. Make the glaze: in a medium bowl whisk together the powdered sugar and lemon juice, adding more juice as required to make the glaze a drizzling consistency. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cookies.

Recipe adapted from Pillsbury. Sugar cookie recipe from Betty Crocker