Cool Summer Desserts: Pink Lemonade Cookies

Alexa play Summertime by Will Smith. 

I don’t know if you were ready for summer just as much as me but THANK GOD it’s finally here! We are officially 6 days in and I’ve had my eye on some summer dessert recipes I’ve been wanting to try and experiment with. 

Today I took these Lemon Cookies Recipe I found on Pinterest and transformed them into some Pink Lemonade Sugar Cookies, perfect for a little family get together or chilling on the patio. That is exactly where I sat eating them when I finished!

But let’s hop right into it.

We’re gonna need lemon juice from lemons ofcourse, the fresh stuff please, and we need the zest as well, so it is imperative not to just buy the juice from the store. I PULVERIZED the lemon to get all that juice out HAHA, because we will be using it for both the icing on top and in the cookie dough recipe!

I started by grating the lemon zest and juicing the lemons, with what I wish wasn’t my hands and was an actual juicer. But, I digress, hands or juicer, do what you got to do to squeeze that lemon dry!

Set aside 1 tsp of the lemon zest and 3 tablespoons of the lemon juice for the icing we will be making later.

The easiest way to bake as I always say is pre measuring all the ingredients. We’ve got our eggs, flour, salt, vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest, brown sugar, and regular sugar ready to go.

This recipe is very simple and you can probably see it does not involve any leavening agents such as baking powder or soda. This creates a more thick and denser cookie, which is exactly what we are looking for in this recipe.

Simply cream together the butter, sugar and brown sugar. 

I noticed that the Pinterest recipe makes a bit of a crunchier cookie and not as soft, so I substituted in some brown sugar which speeds gluten formation and egg protein coagulation… basically it means the cookies will be more chewy and thick, just how I like it!

You are going to want to put the salt in when the butter is being creamed and not later with the flour. This helps enhance the batter’s flavor, balance the sweetness, AND this one I just learned, keeps the vibrancy of the batter!

Next comes the egg, egg yolk, vanilla, lemon juice, and lemon zest. After mixing these in until combined I added pink dye. It is easiest to mix in while the batter is still mostly liquid, then it will be even throughout, instead of streaky if using the finished dough.

Now just throw in the flour, mix it up and they are ready to be rolled out and put on a parchment covered baking sheet. Before you put them in the oven you are going to want to flatten them a little bit with your hands or the bottom of a cup since they won’t spread much without baking soda or powder. This will allow them to also cook more evenly and not be doughy in the center and cooked on the outer edges. 

Now you can put those bad boys in the oven at 350° F for 12 minutes.

While we wait for that to bake let’s make a simple and light icing to cover these cookies with when they come out. Grab that lemon juice and zest you set aside earlier and mix that will 1 ½ cups of powdered sugar.

And of course add some pink dye again, because..PINK LEMONADE ya know!

After the cookies are done, let them cool for about 10 minutes placing them on a cooling rack with parchment paper under.

Then take a spoon and dolloped some icing in the middle of each cookie, spread it out a bit with the spoon and let it fall down over the edges. The parchment paper is to catch all the frosting. Anything to make cleanup easier!

They won’t take too long to crust, give them a good 15 minutes. But don’t put away for at least a couple hours so they don’t stick on top of one another.

I made myself some pink lemonade because it was HOT that day, and the aesthetic of course and ate away! Ooo if you have kids this would be a great dessert to take with for a beach day, picnic in the park, or eating outside in your backyard.

If you try the recipe be sure to share your results, and if you have kids let me know how the babies liked them in the comments below 🙂