Italian Lemon Cookies
Serves 12
40 mins prep
15 mins cook
60 mins Chill Time
55 mins total
These italian lemon cookies are soft olive oil lemon cookies, filled with a tangy gooey lemon curd, then dipped in a lemon basil syrup. The herby basil, zesty tangy lemon, and earthy olive oil flavors make for a cookie that stands out both in flavor and appearance! They're inspired by Italian peach wedding cookies so they're shaped like lemons. These cookies make the perfect lemon themed individual dessert for any celebration.
Lemon Olive Oil Cookie Dough
Lemon Basil Syrup
Filling and Assembly
Lemon Olive Oil Cookie Dough
In a large bowl or stand mixer, combine sugar and lemon zest. Rub the lemon zest and sugar together until the sugar is moistened and fragrant.
cup granulated sugar
lemons
Add eggs into the sugar and beat with an electric mixer until thick, creamy, and lightened in color - for about 5 minutes.
large eggs
Add olive oil, milk, vanilla extract, and salt into the egg mixture and mix to combine.
cup olive oil
tbsp milk
tbsp vanilla extract
tsp sea salt
Sift the flour and baking powder into the wet ingredients and fold the cookie dough with a spatula until it forms a soft cookie dough.
cup all purpose flour
tsp baking powder
Pop the cookie dough into the fridge for 1-2 hours, to give the flour plenty of time to hydrate.
Once the dough is almost done chilling, preheat the oven to 355°F (180°C), and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Use a 2 tablespoon scoop to portion the cookie dough into about 24 cookies.
Then, roll the portioned cookie dough into smooth balls between your palms. The dough might be a bit sticky - if it sticks to your hands, moisten your hands lightly with a bit of water.
Place the cookie dough balls onto a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches of space between each cookie. Use your fingers to pinch two opposite sides of each cookie to form a lemon shape.
Bake the cookies on the parchment lined baking sheet, leaving 2 inches of space between each cookie, for 11-12 minutes. The cookies are ready when the bottoms are golden brown on the bottoms. Don't underbake them or they will fall apart during assembly.
As soon as the cookies are cool enough to touch, use a small sharp knife to cut out the centers of the cookies from the bottom. You want to do this while they're still warm or else the cookies can break apart. This creates space for filling them with lemon curd.
Lemon Basil Syrup
Combine 1 cup of granulated sugar, water, basil sprigs, and vanilla extract in a medium saucepan.
cup granulated sugar
cup water
sprigs fresh basil
tbsp pure vanilla extract
Use a sharp knife or potato peeler to "peel" the lemons. Only remove the yellow zest of the lemon, leaving the white pith on the lemon. Add the lemon zest into the saucepan. Squeeze the lemon juice right into the saucepan as well.
lemons
Heat the syrup on medium heat, and bring it to a simmer. Simmer it for a few minutes before removing the saucepan from the heat. Let the syrup cool a bit before adding limoncello. If you want to reduce the amount of alcohol, you can add the limoncello while it simmers. Strain the basil and lemon zest out of the syrup.
cup limoncello
Divide the syrup into two bowls. Color one bowl of syrup with yellow food coloring and the second with green food coloring. You're going to need to make the syrups very brightly colored so that the color shows up. Liquid and gel food coloring will both work well.
yellow food coloring
green food coloring
Assembly
I like to fill all of the cookies, then dip them in the syrup. Match up the lemon halves so that they match in size. Fill both halves with lemon curd. Be careful not to overfill the cookies because the lemon curd will just ooze out.
cup lemon curd
Next, press both cookie halves together to form a whole lemon shape. If any lemon curd oozes out, wipe it away with a clean finger.
Working with one cookie at a time, briefly dunk one lemon cookie halfway into the yellow syrup. Turn it to the other side and briefly dunk it into the green syrup. Shake any excess syrup off and place the cookies onto a tray for the syrup to soak into the cookie.
Once all of the cookies are dipped into the syrup, sprinkle both sides of the cookies with granulated sugar (for a less sweet coating) or roll the cookies in sugar (for a sweeter coating). Then, insert a basil leaf and bit of stem into one side of each cookie to resemble lemon leaves. It's important to do this just before serving.
cup granulated sugar
fresh basil leaves