Healthy Lemon Shortbread Cookies
Healthy Lemon Shortbread Cookies — simple, sweet, buttery, and lemony fresh delicious! You’d never know these are sugar free, gluten free, dairy free, and vegan!
When you’re craving the crumble and richness of Shortbread Cookies, but want a little more oomph in flavor, add some lemon zest to the cookie dough and voila! You’ve “oomphed” up this shiz to da MAX. No offense to my other Shortbread Cookie recipes (I’m lookin’ at you Matcha Green Tea Almond and Funfetti), but these have got to be my absolute FAVORITE flavor yet. While I love all the flavors the same, these Healthy Lemon Shortbread Cookies hold a special place in my heart.
When I was younger — and just as chocolate-obsessed as I am now — I never really liked citrusy desserts.
Why suck on a sour lemon when you can have sweet and creamy Milk Chocolate?? I must have asked my sister this on a weekly basis. My sister has never had much of a sweet tooth (SACRILEGIOUS, I know), but would always always always be down to eat something sweet if it had lemon in it. Being the younger sister, I always looked up to my big sister. If she would eat a lemony dessert, I would eat it too (and try to like it, despite hating citrus at the time). I’d take a bite of that Lemon Bar or Key Lime Pie that she was eating and fake a smile, just so I could be closer to my big sis in that special moment.
Nowadays, I not only appreciate citrusy sweets, I absolutely love ’em! And I think it’s because those fond memories of eating desserts with my sister flood in whenever I get a taste of lemon, lime, or grapefruit.
Healthy Lemon Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 180g (1½ cups) Oat Flour
- 96g (½ cup) Granulated Erythritol
- 1 tsp Double-Acting Baking Powder
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 112g (½ cup) Coconut Oil (melted)
- 60g (¼ cup) Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (room temperature)
- 4 tsp Lemon Zest
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 tsp Natural Butter Flavor
- 1 tsp Liquid Stevia Extract
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the oat flour, erythritol, baking powder, and salt.
- In a stand mixer bowl with beater attachment, add the coconut oil, almond milk, lemon zest, vanilla extract, butter flavor, and stevia extract. Mix on low speed until completely mixed.
- Dump the dry ingredients into the stand mixer and mix until completely mixed. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Roll ⅓ of the dough in between two silicone baking sheets until ~⅛" thick. Use a 2" circle cookie cutter to punch circles into the dough. Peel away the dough surrounding the circle shapes, putting the dough back into the stand mixer bowl, and transfer the silicone sheet with the circles onto a cookie tray.
- Bake for ~12 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown around the edges. Carefully transfer the silicone sheet onto your counter or a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Keep re-rolling the dough and baking until all the dough is used up.
Made without the white flour, white sugar, butter, and shortening, these Healthy Lemon Shortbread Cookies won’t weigh you down. Even though they’re sweet and buttery rich, they’re very light and refreshing.
Enjoy!
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
I have to admit, I’m not a big cookie person. These look really bright and perfect for spring however!
I’m so happy to have found your blog! I love sweets but am trying to be healthy—what good is spending an hour at the gym if I’m going to load up on sweets (and other carbs) later?
I’ve tried your peanut butter protein bites and the healthy pb cookies—both are very satisfying! just one question….why the multiple sources of sweetener? Do I really need the liquid stevia?
Any info is appreciated!! Kerry
P.s.—I can’t wait to get your DIY PROTEIN BAR book!
Hi Kerry! The stevia is a crucial ingredient in my recipes as it provides a concentrated sweetness without the calories or sugar. 1 tsp of stevia has the sweetness of about 1 cup of sugar (!!!), hope this helps 🙂
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Looks delicious, mmmm.
These cookies look great and i cant wait to try them out!..But im very new to the vegan-sugar free baking and at the risk of sounding like a total newbie…
i dont know much about the ingredients that would be used in the recipes
oat flour? can i grind regular (the quick cook) oats to get that?
double acting baking powder? can i use the regular baking powder and would i need to change the quantity?
Absolutely! Be sure to grind your oats into a very fine flour, otherwise the cookies may not bake off the same. Regular baking powder is actually most of the time double-acting, but if it’s not, I’m sure the recipe will still work out 🙂
Hope you like the cookies!
Hi Jessica, thank you for the recipe! do you think I could make this without the erythritol or any other sweetener, just the stevia extract?
I wouldn’t recommend omitting the granulated sweetener since it adds bulk to the recipe and affects the texture.
Can I substitute Agave Nectar as a sweetener in this or any of your recipes?
It really depends on the recipe and what sweetener you’re trying to replace. It’s important to note that erythritol is a dry, granulated sweetener while agave is a liquid sweetener. The extra liquid that you add to a recipe can throw off the dry:wet ratio and cause your baked good to not turn out. I wouldn’t recommend using agave in these cookies because you won’t be able to form a dough with all the extra liquid.
Hi Jessica,
I’ve used erythtritol mixed with stevia in a recipe before (not from this site) and it gave an icy sensation.
Do these cookies have that icy taste to them?
Thanks Jess.
Sometimes too much erythritol will do that. I didn’t notice that these cookies had an icy sensation, and neither did my taste testers. Even if I do encounter the icy feeling, it really doesn’t bother me at all.