These Strawberry Lemon Sugar Cookies are the perfect sweet treat for your Valentine this year! They’re flavored with freeze-dried strawberries and fresh lemon zest and they’re totally the way to your Valentine’s heart!
11 days and counting to the most romantic day of the year folks! ♥
It’s time to show your Valentine some love and bake a batch of these Strawberry Lemon Sugar Cookies! They’re the perfect color for the holiday and they’re flavored with sweet freeze-dried strawberries and tangy fresh lemon zest!
It seems like people are either all in or all out on the Valentine’s Day front. I’m all in! I’ve always been.
I can distinctly remember the old Valentine’s box from grammar school, especially the year when I got that special Valentine from a secret crush I had. I was in fourth grade, he was in eighth. Our mothers were friends. Pretty sure his mom made him slip that Valentine in my classroom Valentine box, but I was none the wiser back then and on cloud nine when I saw that special Valentine signed Love, Doug.
Sweet and Tart Strawberry Lemon Sugar Cookies
I’ve always been a fan of the strawberry lemon combination, so I decided why go with plain old sugar cookie cutouts for my Valentine this year? Why not bring the sweet taste of spring and summer into the mix? And who can pass up a crisp, buttery sugar cookie? Not me, that’s for sure!
Strawberry Lemon Sugar Cookies Ingredients
- all-purpose flour
- freeze-dried strawberries
- baking powder
- salt
- unsalted butter
- granulated sugar
- lemon zest
- vanilla extract
- egg
- Wilton pink gel food coloring, if desired
The freeze-dried strawberries give these cutouts such delicious flavor, but I wanted my cookies to have a richer pink hue so, I went with some additional Wilton Pink gel food coloring and I love the way they turned out.
I added two heaping teaspoons of the freshly grated lemon zest, so you could definitely taste the lemony flavor. If you’re a fan of summer strawberry lemonade then you’re going to love these.
You’ll need to take into account the two hour chilling time for these cookies. The chilling will help the cookies retain their nice defined shape and the dough will be less sticky and easier to work with.
Show your Valentine how much you love them this year and bake a batch of these Strawberry Lemon Sugar Cookies this Valentine’s Day! Please let me know if you give the recipe a try. And if you have any questions about the recipe, just drop a comment below. Enjoy!
A Few Cook’s Notes for Strawberry Lemon Sugar Cookies
I used a 3 1/2-inch heart cookie cutter for my cutouts. The size of your cutter will determine the number of cookies you’ll have. Total cookies for my size cookie cutter was 32-34.
I purchased my freeze-dried strawberries at Trader Joe’s and I used an entire 1.2-oz. bag.
As I mentioned above, I also added some Wilton Pink food coloring to my dough. I made a few batches of these cookies and I wanted to just go the freeze-dried strawberry route for coloring, but I just thought it wasn’t pink enough. Just a smidge of the coloring on a toothpick added to the cookie dough was enough to give it that pretty pink color.
More Delicious Valentine’s Day Recipes to Enjoy
Key Lime Sandwich Cookies with Raspberry Buttercream
Strawberry Lemon Sugar Cookies
Print Recipe Pin RecipeIngredients
- 1 (one) 1.2 oz. bag unsweetened freeze-dried strawberries
- 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp. freshly grated lemon zest
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Wilton Pink gel food coloring, if desired for a richer pink hue
Instructions
- Add strawberries to a small food processor and process into a powder. Set aside.
- Whisk together, flour, baking powder, salt and strawberry powder until well combined. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the lemon zest, egg and vanilla extract and continue to mix until combined, about one minute.
- Turn the mixer to low and slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until combined. Divide the dough into three equal portions and wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment. Set aside.
- Remove dough from refrigerator and using one portion of dough at a time, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll dough out to ¼-inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters.
- Transfer to prepared sheet, spaced two inches apart and bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Let cool on sheet until firm then remove to wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Mr Picky isn’t picky when it comes to these cookies. Actually any cookie. I am the luckiest husband in the world, THANK YOU Mary Ann:)
Love you Mr. Picky! XO
Where can I find the recipe for the Strawberry Lemon Cookies?
Hi Jackie. It’s a glich with the new website. I’m working on it. Sorry!
All fixed Jackie! Thanks for your patience!
Such fun cookies and I’m loving the flavour combination and the beautiful colour of these special treats! And loving your new website, too :)
Thanks so much Jennifer! Working out a few kinks, but I LOVE it too! It was time.
Not only are these cookies adorable they sound absolutely delicious!
Thanks Marissa!
The description says 1.2 oz. Bag of freeze dried strawberries. However the recipe says 11.2 oz. Big difference! Recipe amount should be changed.
Going to try recipe tonight. Looks wonderful for St. Valentine’s Day treat!!❤️
Hi Joan. The recipe actually says 1 1.2-oz. bag. I hope you enjoy these! I love the strawberry lemon flavor combination.
Made these for our anniversary and we loved them! Great flavor combination. It was likely my wacky oven, but I preferred the ones that were slightly thicker than 1/4 inch. Thank you for the recipe, it’s a keeper!
So happy you enjoyed them Christina! Happy Anniversary!
I tried this recipe for Valentine’s day this year. Great flavor, but the dough came out crumbly, so the texture of the cookie suffered after baking. I wasn’t sure what was missing as I followed the recipe. I loved the pink color, anyway. I will workshop and make again!
Hi there Ashley-Nicole. Just make sure when you measure out your flour that you don’t pack it into your measuring cup. Spoon the flour in and level off with a knife, that way you won’t have more flour than the recipe calls for thus making your cookie dough drier.