Sunshine Lemonade Cookies

These soft cut-out cookies have lemonade in the mix for a sweet lemon cookie you will love!

If you have been a fan of Easybaked for very long, you know that I love lemon-themed desserts! I’ve used lemonade in cupcakes and cakes– but these cut-out cookies are a new experiment- and I adore them! These cookies just melt in your mouth- and that tart lemon flavor is wonderful.

You can cut these into any shape you want, and decorate at whatever level of creativity and effort you choose. I wanted happy sunshine cookies for a summer party- so I used a Smiley Face Emoji Chocolate Mold and yellow, blue and orange Wilton’s Candy Melts to decorate my cookies. They make me smile!

Here is how I made them: (printable cookie recipe here)

INGREDIENTS: (makes about 24 cookies)

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter (softened)
• 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 3 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• One packet (0.23 oz) of unsweetened lemonade powder (I used Kool Aid brand)
• 2 bags of Wilton Candy Melts in blue (or in whatever colors you want to decorate in!)
• 1 bag of Wilton Candy Melts in yellow
• 1/4 bag of Wilton Candy Melts in orange

DIRECTIONS:

• Preheat oven to 350F degrees.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth.
• Add eggs, vanilla and lemonade powder and mix well.
• Add all dry ingredients and mix until able to knead into a firm ball of dough (add additional flour if necessary).
• Roll out on a floured counter with a flour coated rolling pin to desired thickness (I made them about 1/4 inch thick))
• Cut into whatever shape you want- I used a 3.5-inch round cookie cutter.
• Place on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet.
• Bake at 350F degrees for 8-10 minutes and slide off the cookie sheet (leaving on parchment paper) to cool.
• Melt 3/4 of yellow candy melts (in microwave, 30-second increments, stirring in between until smooth) and use a small zip-top bag to pipe this into each smiley face mold cavity. Freeze for 4-5 minutes and remove from mold. Set aside.
• Melt blue candy melts and pipe around the edges of each circle.
• Melt remaining yellow and orange candy melts and place in small zip-top bags to be ready to decorate. Keep them warm in a towel.
• Flood cookie to edges with blue candy melts and immediately pipe circles of orange and yellow around the cookie’s center. 
• Use a toothpick or skewer to pull lines through the melted chocolate and then tap on table to remove lines.
• Place a smiley face in the center.

• Repeat with remaining cookies, keeping candy melts warm in towels as you go.
• Once they are hardened—Enjoy!

My thoughts: These are delicious. Decorating them this way takes a little time, but you could certainly make these cookies and decorate with a buttercream and some sprinkles if you want easy! The cookies are so worth trying- they got rave reviews 🙂 Happy summer to you!!!!  ~r

Other lemon treats here on Easybaked (click on a photo to see the recipe):