These lemon-flavored cookies are crispy, buttery and melt in your mouth as you eat them. These cookies are just four ingredients and easy to make. They store well so they are good for gifting or bringing to a gathering.
I’ve made a lot of Melting Moments this past month. I love how easy they are and my friends and family seem to really like them. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with different flavors. This lemon version is bright and zesty.
Ingredients
- Butter
- Powdered Sugar
- Cake flour
- Lemon zest
Butter: These cookies use unsalted butter. Butter is what gives these cookies their buttery flavor and light crumb.
Powdered sugar: Powdered sugar is used to sweeten these cookies and help the cookies dissolve in your mouth. The powdered sugar sold here is mixed with cornstarch. The cornstarch also helps with the cookie texture. Make sure you use powdered sugar that contains cornstarch.
Cake flour: Cake flour is a type of flour with a lower protein than all purpose flour, resulting in a lighter crumb. Melting Moments are traditionally made with a mix of cornstarch and all purpose flour but you can achieve the same results by using cake flour and it saves you some time. I always have leftover cake flour in my pantry that I need to use so I used cake flour to make these cookies. However, if you don’t have cake flour in your pantry, you can make a homemade version with all purpose flour and cornstarch.
Lemon zest: Fresh lemon zest is added to the cookie dough to give these cookies their zesty lemon flavor. You do not want to add lemon juice to the cookie dough because it will cause the cookies to spread too much.
What are Lemon Melting Moments
These are a lemon flavored version of Melting Moments. Melting Moments are an Australian butter cookie that is known for its buttery and melt-in-your-mouth texture. The cookies can be served as just plain cookies with a dusting of powdered sugar or as sandwich cookies with a cream filling.
How to Make Lemon Melting Moments
The butter and powdered sugar are first creamed together until light and fluffy. The cake flour is then added in until a dough forms. Finally, the zest is stirred in. The cookie dough is scooped up using a cookie scoop and rolled into smooth balls. The dough balls are placed in the fridge to chill while the oven preheats. You can take the dough out of the fridge after 10 minutes and place it into the oven to bake. The cookies will need about 12 minutes in the oven.
More Melting Moment Cookies
- 3 Ingredient Melting Moments
- 3 Ingredient Chocolate Meltaway Cookies
- 3 Ingredient Chocolate Peanut Butter Meltaways
4 Ingredient Lemon Melting Moments
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp (46 g) powdered sugar plus additional for dusting
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp (129 g) cake flour
- 1 tbsp (3 g) lemon zest
Instructions
- Line a large baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, add butter and sugar. Using the flat paddle attachment on the mixer, cream at highest speed until light and fluffy (this should only take about 30 seconds to 1 minute). Make sure to stop and scrape the sides of your bowl a few times in between mixing to make sure all the sugar and butter gets mixed.
- Add in cake flour. Mix on low speed until the flour is fully incorporated and a dough forms. Add in lemon zest. Mix on lowest speed just until the zest is evenly mixed in.
- Use a 2 tsp cookie scoop to scoop out dough. If you don't own a 2 tsp cookie scoop you can just measure out 2 tsp of dough with your measuring spoon. Roll each dough ball in between your palms until it becomes a smooth round ball. Place onto prepared cookie sheet, spacing cookies at least one inch apart.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). While your oven is preheating, place the cookie dough balls into the fridge for 10 minutes.
- Bake cookies for about 12 minutes or until the cookies are done. The cookies should stay pale. Remove cookies and let them cool on the cookie sheet. Once cooled, remove cookies and dust with powdered sugar before serving.
Notes
- These cookies have a nice zesty lemon flavor. However, if you want even more lemon flavor, you can add 1-2 drops of lemon extract.
- Make sure your powdered sugar is the type that contains cornstarch and not the kind that is pure sugar.
- When measuring flour or sugar, use the spoon and level method.
- Homemade cake flour: Measure 1 and 1/4 cups of all purpose flour. Remove 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of the flour (you can add this back to your flour container). Add the remaining into a medium bowl. Add 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of cornstarch to the bowl. Thoroughly sift the flour and cornstarch together. Measure out 1 cup and 2 tbsp for the recipe. Do not use the full amount. This homemade cake flour recipe will make a little more cake flour than you need to make the cookies.
- I found that 2 tsp was the ideal size for the cookie dough. Any bigger and the cookies spread too much for my liking.
Nutrition
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
Your recipe is fantastic as is, however I was wondering if adding small dices of fresh lemon would mess it up?
It might cause the cookies to spread too much because of the moisture from the lemons, but I’m not sure.
I don’t like the texture of lemon zest; is there any other way to flavor these?
you could use lemon extract
I’m sorry but I didn’t find the amount of cornstarch to add OR the notation on what powdered sugar to purchase that includes cornstarch. Can you provide this information?
You don’t need to add cornstarch to this recipe. You do need to use powdered sugar that contains cornstarch. I’m not sure where you are located, but in the US, most powdered sugar is sold with cornstarch mixed in to prevent caking. If you look at the ingredient label, you should see sugar and cornstarch as the ingredients.