strawberry lemonade sugar cookies

These soft, strawberry lemonade cut out sugar cookies are sprinkled with bits of crushed strawberries and lemon zest for a bright, summery strawberry lemonade flavor. This flavor is so fun when cut into strawberry shapes, but you can use this recipe for any shape you like!

why you’ll love strawberry lemonade sugar cookies with royal icing

• The dough is extremely easy to mix together and very workable for rolling and cutting. It does require an hour or two of chill time, but it’s worth it, I promise.
• The cut cookies hold their shape and have very minimal spread, so this dough is great for cookie decorating!
• The dough is only colored by powdered freeze dried strawberries, which have an incredible strawberry flavor. The color does dull slightly after baking, but it is still noticeably pink. 
• You can easily make variations on this strawberry lemonade dough, such as chocolate covered strawberry (removing the lemon and adding chocolate chips), plain strawberry (remove the lemon), and strawberries and cream (remove the lemon and add white chocolate chips).
• Strawberry royal icing is AMAZING and a unique way to decorate cookies. The flavor comes from powdered freeze dried strawberries, and the royal icing tastes very similar to melted strawberry ice cream. Grab the recipe here!

ingredients in strawberry lemonade sugar cookies

• unsalted butter– I always use unsalted butter in my recipes so I can accurately tell you how much salt to add, but the truth is that when I’m just baking personally, I often use salted butter and nothing is ever too salty. Use what you have, but make sure that it has come to room temperature, about 66-70 degrees. Butter straight out of the fridge will not cream as well, which will either require too much creaming (creating too aerated of a mixture) or the final dough will have little pebbles of butter that will melt in the oven, causing uneven cookies. Make sure the butter hasn’t softened too much and become melty or squishy.
• granulated sugar–  I use granulated sugar in my sugar cookie recipe. This recipe has much less sugar (almost half the amount) than a typical sugar cookie recipe, but just enough to give the cookie the perfect sweetness and texture.
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt– This is the best type of salt for baking and cooking, so I totally recommend grabbing a box here on Amazon or here at The Spice House where you can use my code EMILYLOGGANS for 10% off. It will last a while. If all you have is regular table salt, use only half the amount of salt the recipe calls for. In this case, you would use ½ teaspoon of regular table salt rather than 1 teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt.
• egg– You can use either two egg yolks or one whole egg for this recipe.
• vanilla– I use vanilla bean paste because the flavor is more intense and generally better, but vanilla extract is just fine here.
• lemon zest– Lemon zest holds all the flavor in a lemon, so use a full two tablespoons of lemon zest- two small or one large.
• all purpose flour–  Flour provides the structure for this cookie, and this recipe has the perfect amount for the dough to both hold its shape, yet not be too floury and hard.
• freeze dried strawberries– I use Good & Gather, Trader Joe’s, or Costco freeze dried strawberries and blend them in a food processor until fine. You could also use a spice or coffee grinder. Nature Restore is a good resource for freeze dried strawberries that have already been finely ground into a powder.
• baking powder– for a bit of lift, but optional if you want to preserve the shape as much as possible
• cornstarch– Adding a small amount of cornstarch to a dough will make the final cookies a bit softer and more tender while also helping the cookies hold their shape.
• royal icing– get the recipe here

*You can use my code EMILYLOGGANS for 10% off at The Spice House. I love to get my vanilla extract, almond extract, kosher salt, and spices from there!

supplies needed to make strawberry lemonade sugar cookies

• scale– to measure the flour, sugar, and strawberries
• hand mixer or stand mixer
• spatula– to scrape the sides of the bowl 
• food processor– to grind the strawberries into a powder; this is my favorite little food processor for small quantities
• microplane or zester– to zest the lemon
• parchment paper– for rolling the dough and baking the cookies
• rolling pin with a guide for ¼″
• cookie cutters– I used this one in 2″ and 3.5″ (it also comes in an STL if you have a 3D printer)
• baking sheets– I love these ones!
• piping bags– (for decorating) These are very cheap and work well; these are my go-tos, although more expensive.
• gel food coloring– I like Americolor, Chefmaster, and ColourMill. If you are just starting out, this is a great basic set!

how to make strawberry lemon cut out cookies

Pulverize the freeze dried strawberries to a powder and set aside for now. To a mixing bowl, add the butter, sugar, salt, and lemon zest. Mix on medium-low speed until the mixture is “creamed”, which means lighter and a bit fluffy. Since this is a roll out dough, you don’t need to mix it for several minutes until it is very fluffy like you would for a cake. Look for a completely combined mixture with no lumps of butter or clumps of sugar.

Add the egg and vanilla and mix until emulsified. The mixture will be smooth, thick, and a bit shiny. All at once, add the flour, pulverized strawberries, cornstarch, and baking powder. Mix on low until the flour is nearly combined. Add the rest of the strawberries that are still in large pieces and mix until the dough has no dry, floury spots. Be careful not to over mix the dough!

Drop the dough onto a piece of lightly floured parchment paper. Sprinkle a bit more flour on top of the dough lump before covering it with another piece of parchment paper. Use a ¼″ guided rolling pin to roll out the dough. Refrigerate the dough for at least a half an hour (two hours is preferred) to chill the butter in the dough. This makes it so much more workable and helps prevent spreading in the final cookies. If you’d like to make it ahead of time, leave the dough (well wrapped) in the fridge for up to three days.

Once the dough has chilled, and you’re ready to start cutting cookies, preheat the oven to 375 F. Grab your cookie cutters and cut shapes from the dough, dipping the cutters in flour if they are sticking to the dough. Place the cut shapes on a parchment lined baking sheet and pop in the freezer for five minutes before baking. This helps the cookies retain their shape. Don’t skip this! 

Bake the cookies for 6-8 minutes for smaller cookies, and 8-10 minutes for larger cookies. Keep an eye on them, and bake them until the tops are no longer shiny. Don’t over bake them, or they won’t be soft.

Once they’re done baking, let them cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. If you move them too soon when they’re piping hot, they could break easily.

Re-roll the dough scraps, preferably up to two times. If the dough is very soft after rolling, pop the dough in the freezer for five minutes to chill before cutting cookies again.

how to make strawberry lemon royal icing

You are going to LOVE this strawberry royal icing. It tastes amazing, and very much reminds me of melted strawberry ice cream. You can make a full batch of strawberry lemon royal icing with this recipe (swapping the lemon juice for water if you want plain strawberry flavor) or you can make this simple small batch of strawberry icing by using an existing batch of vanilla royal icing. Start by making a batch of thick salted vanilla bean royal icing. My recipe makes about 6 cups of icing. Determine how much of it you’d like to turn into strawberry icing, and then follow this basic ratio, and adjusting as needed. Weigh eight ounces (one cup) of icing into a small bowl. To the bowl, add 10g of freeze dried strawberry powder (using a fine mesh sieve to keep the larger crumbs of strawberries out of the icing) and a splash of water. Mix it together until it is fully combined. Thin the icing out to your desired consistency and use as normal. 

A big batch of vanilla royal icing ready to be turned into strawberry icing! (My recipe makes about 40 oz.)

Because the powdered strawberries are a dry ingredient, they will need to be hydrated sufficiently or they won’t mix well into the icing and it will become so overly stiff. I added just enough water to moisten the powder and turn it into a jammy consistency.

This icing will have a bit of a gluey texture, but it isn’t difficult to use. You may just notice a slight change in texture. Feel free to adjust the amount of strawberry powder to your liking based on color and taste.

I used 16 oz. of vanilla icing + 20g powdered strawberry to make strawberry flavored to use as the pink and another 16 oz. of vanilla icing + 20g powdered strawberry to use as the red to decorate about 2 dozen cookies. This did end up being a bit too much, so I would venture to say that this amount of icing would decorate 3 dozen cookies.

These are the strawberries I use, because they come in convenient little 10g pouches.

To recap, the ratio is one cup of icing to 10g of strawberry powder. If you were to turn the entire batch of icing into strawberry icing, that would be six cups of icing to 60g of strawberry powder. That would be two of these one ounce packages. Here is the full recipe for strawberry lemonade royal icing.

how to decorate strawberry cut out sugar cookies with strawberry royal icing

Aren’t these the cutest strawberries? I used this cookie cutter in the size 2″ and 3.5″ for a little variety.

Decorating these is extremely easy. You’ll need these colors and consistencies of royal icing:

• detail consistency pink, a small amount (I just used the strawberry icing as-is)
• flood consistency pink (I just used the strawberry icing as-is)
• flood consistency red (I added a small bit of Americolor Red Red to my strawberry icing)
• hybrid consistency green icing (I used Americolor Moss + Cypress)
• detail consistency yellow icing (I used Americolor Gold)

Start by outlining the shape of the strawberry, piping out the negative space for the little leaf topper.

Flood half of the cookies with pink flood consistency icing and the other half with red flood consistency icing. This icing will have a slightly different texture and may need a little help with settling. Use a toothpick, a scribe tool, or even the tip of the icing bag to smooth out the surface of the icing.

Give the flooded strawberries some time to crust over, at least twenty minutes or overnight to dry completely. (I recommend placing a fan near the cookies to add a little air flow.)

Use the green hybrid royal icing to outline and flood the leaf sections, letting them dry for a few minutes before flooding the sections that touch.

Use the yellow detail consistency icing to pipe upside down teardrops for the seeds all over the surface of the strawberry.

success tips for making strawberry lemonade sugar cookies

• ‘Mise en place’ is a French phrase with the idea of putting everything in its place before beginning to make a recipe. It helps everything to go smoothly and eliminates so much possible stress. Getting all of your supplies and weighing ingredients before ever starting the recipe will help tremendously.
• Weigh your ingredients, particularly the flour. It is the most important measurement in this recipe to weigh. Flour can be off in volume measurements by up to 30g, which is a quarter cup! Having incorrect flour measurements can cause your cookies to spread too much or, alternatively, be dry and crumbly. Weighing your ingredients makes everything so much easier, as you don’t have to wash all the measuring cups at the end. However, I do not use the scale to weigh out teaspoon or tablespoon measurements for things like baking powder, salt, vanilla, or cornstarch, for example.
• Don’t over bake these cookies. They are meant to be on the softer side. Bake them just until the tops are no longer shiny.
• Don’t skip the chill time. Even a little bit is better than none, and a short time in the freezer is a good way to chill the dough fast. 
• If you want a very sturdy cookie that doesn’t spread at all, add another 30g (¼ cup) of all purpose flour. 
• If you want even more lemon flavor in the Strawberry Lemon variation, add a teaspoon of lemon extract or paste (NOT oil) to the dough when adding the vanilla. I love this one from Nielsen-Massey.

Print