How To Make Zitronenherzen Or Lemon Heart Cookies
Zitronenherzen are delightful gluten-free lemon and almond cookies, great for Christmas Cookie plates, for gifting, and perfect for Valentine's Day or Bridal Showers too!
Equipment
- Medium sized bowl
- Handmixer or egg beater
- Baking sheet
- Rolling Pin
- Parchment paper
- Heart shaped cookie cutter (or make stars or other shapes)
Ingredients
- 3 Egg yolks
- 60 g Panela sugar (Sucanat) powdered (about ⅓ cup)
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 5 drops Lemon oil or 1 tsp lemon extract or lemon zest.
- ⅛ tsp Baking powder
- 200 g Blanched almond flour or more about 2 cups - Use only 200g to start. Add a little more if the dough is too sticky, it will be slightly sticky, but should be firm enough to be easy to roll out and form. The size of your egg yolks makes a difference.
For The Icing
- 1 cup Powdered cane sugar, sifted - more or less, adjust as needed.
- 2 Tbsp Lemon juice fresh is best, but you can use bottled
Optional Food Coloring
- pinch Beet powder red food coloring
- Matcha or spinach powder green food coloring
- Blue spirulina powder blue food coloring
- Turmeric powder yellow food coloring
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400℉ (wait till later if you choose to chill the dough)
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Place the eggs, sugar, and flavorings into a bowl and cream till light and fluffy.
- Mix the baking powder with 200g of almond flour and add it all to the egg fluff.
- Fold in the almonds with a spatula or spoon and form a slightly sticky dough. If it is really soft and sticky, add more almond flour, one spoonful at a time. Don't add too much. It should be a little sticky and soft, but firm enough to roll out.
- Place it into the refrigerator for half an hour to make handling easier if you like. I don't find it necessary, but it's an option, and you can also refrigerate the dough overnight and bake the next day.
- Roll the dough out to about ¼ in thick.
- Cut hearts or other shapes out of the dough and place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet.
- Bake at 400℉ for about 10 minutes.
- Keep a close eye on them. They should remain a pale color.
- When they are just getting slightly golden, turn off the heat and take out the cookies.
- Wait just a minute and then use a turner to transfer the cookies onto a cooling rack and let them cool to room temperature..
Make The Icing
- Once they are cooled, prepare your icing.
- Sift the powdered sugar into a small bowl
- Add the lemon juice.
- If the mix is too thick, add more lemon juice. If it's too runny, add a little more powdered sugar.
- If you're using colored icing, take away a spoonful and mix with a pinch of the right color vegetable powder in another small bowl. Mix well.
- To frost hearts I like to coat the bottom of a small spoon with icing. Then I place it into one round part of the heart, then into the other, then pull the frosting down to the point. You could also use a pastry brush. You could also pipe a thin line around the edge and fill it in for a really fancy, finished look.
- If you want to use two colors on one heart, add the second color while the first is still wet and before it starts to crust over. Or you can wait till it's completely dry and then add the second color. I prefer the first method. I find that a toothpick works great for adding thin accent lines or dots.
- Let the hearts dry on a rack for a few hours. Then carefully place them into a container (the icing will take a day to really get firm, so try not to touch it, or leave the cookies out for a whole day. Separate layers with pieces of parchment to keep the icing from getting nicked. Seal the container.
Storage
- These cookies will store in a cookie tin or other sealed container for about a month. The flavor will get even better after a few days, so they are great to make ahead.
Notes
Tips and substitutions For Making Zitronenherzen
- Rolling out the dough: These are super easy to roll out, but it helps to put the dough into the refrigerator for half an hour to firm it up a bit after mixing, just to make cutting out easier. Then roll into a flat disk between two sheets of parchment with a sprinkling of almond flour to prevent sticking.
- Fix sticky shape cutters: Dip your shape cutters into almond flour, powder sugar, or cold water between cuts to keep the dough from sticking.
- Lemon Flavor: You can use lemon extract instead of lemon oil to flavor these, and you can also use a teaspoon of lemon zest instead.
- Sugar substitutes: I love panela sugar, also known as jaggery or sucanat. This is the unrefined sap of the cane sugar plant. Just like with maple syrup, it gets reduced to a concentrate, which not only increases the sweetness, but also retains the heat-stable nutrients that are present in the plant's sap with nothing removed. All the healthy molasses stays in the sugar. This sap is then dried and sold as crystals or in block form. I recommend getting the crystals. This sugar has a strong molasses flavor. Coconut sugar is a great alternative to panela sugar with similar strong flavors. If you prefer something more neutral but don't want to use GMO white beet sugar, give evaporated cane juice crystals a try. They are partially refined, but still retain some of the original nutrients and if you choose organic, you can avoid the toxic pesticides that are generally sprayed on sugar cane at the point of harvest. All these sugars are easy to grind in a coffee grinder. The original recipe calls for powdered sugar. If you choose it, I recommend using organic powdered sugar sourced from sugar cane.
Ideas for Usage
- These are great to serve alongside a creamy dessert for a special occasion.
- Make stars and decorate with red, white, and blue icing for Fourth of July cookies.
- For Easter, cut out egg shapes and decorate with different colored icing. Try mixing spirulina and beet to get purple or turmeric and beet to get orange, etc.
- Serve for Valentine's Day with white and red icing. They are great served along with Panna Cotta with Raspberry Sauce!
- Make them with white icing and sprinkled lightly with dried lemon zest for a bridal shower or even a wedding.
- Fill a small tin for a favorite teacher gift.
- Great for picnics, potlucks, and summer parties.
- Sell along with lemonade at your lemonade stand.
- Great on a Christmas cookie platter.
- Gift to neighbors, friends, the mailman, daycare teacher, coworkers in cookie tins along with Zimtsterne and Vanillekipferl.