Lemon Cookies with Raspberry Curd

These lemon cookies with raspberry curd are the perfect pairing of bright lemons and tart raspberries. Soft, zesty, crinkly, with a luscious raspberry curd filling— they're going to be your new favourite spring dessert.

These cookies were actually going to be red velvet crinkle cookies with raspberry curd when I was first testing them. They were good but something was missing. I asked my followers on Instagram and a huge majority voted to make them lemon instead of red velvet and I'm so glad they did!

The lemon and raspberry flavour is absolutely immaculate. The bright and zesty lemon goes so brilliantly with the tart yet sweet raspberry curd in the middle of the cookie. It's smooth, luscious and just amazing. I've been so in love with these and slightly disappointed I couldn't get this recipe out to you guys earlier. College has been keeping my schedule in a chokehold unfortunately.

This recipe is a variation of my lemon crinkle cookies which were a huge hit on here. I've received so many DM's, tags and comments of everyone's recreations and it genuinely makes me SO happy to see them. I hope you love these just as much, if not more. Now let's get to making the lemon cookies with raspberry curd.

The Raspberry Curd

This is the star of this recipe and surprisingly simple to make. You want to make this ahead of time or even the day of, a few hours before making the cookies.

This recipe is a tweaked version of my lemon curd curd I used in this Lemon & Coconut Tres Leches Cake (which I actually never shared the recipe of.....) and inspired by Bon Appetite's recipe.

Here are my tips to making this raspberry curd:

• If using frozen raspberries, make sure to increase the cooking time a bit to account for the extra moisture they will release

• Use fresh lemon juice. The lemon juice brightens up the raspberry flavour, as well as adding a nice bit of tartness. Fresh lemon juice will have a better flavour than the bottles version

• Adjust sugar according to the tartness of your raspberries. Add the same ¼ cup in the first round of cooking and then taste to see if it still needs the 5 extra tablespoon or less, depending on how sweet you want it.

• Strain the raspberry puree to remove the seeds. This helps make the curd way smoother and creamier. If you don't mind the seeds and the texture of them, or just don't have the energy to do it, skip this step. It'll taste the same.

• Make sure to cool down the raspberry puree before adding in the eggs. This will help prevent the eggs from basically becoming scrambled eggs due to the heat. We don't want that.

• Cook the curd over low heat and stir constantly. Don't let the mixture bubble. This prevents it from burning and sticking to the pan. By not letting it bubble/boil, you're preventing it from overcooking.

• Place the plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd when putting away to cool down. This prevents a 'skin' from forming on the top of the curd as it cools. Which is not appealing and once you mix it, it becomes lumpy instead of smooth.

• Let it completely cool down before using in the cookies. The curd thickens as it cools, so if you use it while it's still warm, it'll be much more runny. Cooling it down makes it a bit more manageable to scoop into the cookies.

The Lemon Crinkle Cookies

These cookies are my one true love and I'm kind of obsessed with them. I have to force myself to not make them just so I don't overdo it in the sugar consumption department.

These are basically the Lemon Crinkle Cookies I shared before, which were loved by so many on here and across my social media. With good reason of course. They're soft, so darn lemony, and taste like a dream.

I've filled these up with the amazing raspberry curd we just talked about and it's honestly magical. The flavours go so well together—you absolutely have to give these a try if you liked the lemon cookies!

The cookie dough will be wet and sticky—which is why it needs to be chilled for 2-3 hours. This will helps the dough become more manageable to roll into balls and also helps develop the flavours even more.

Here are my tips to making the cookies:

• Massage the sugar and lemon zest – Make sure to massage the sugar and lemon zest together to get the most flavour out of the zest as possible. Doing this releases the oils in the peel, into the sugar and amplifies the lemon flavour—way more than if you only used the zest itself. You can use a food processor to do this OR a silicon spatula to rub the sugar into the zest.

• Refrigerate the dough – For this recipe, it’s important to refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours since it is pretty sticky and will be hard to manage and roll into balls. Chilling the dough helps to make it more manageable. It also helps the flavour develop more, since the flour in the dough fully hydrates, pulling the moisture from the wet ingredients. Refrigerating the dough also makes them bake thicker since the butter in the dough is chilled. Without chilling it, the cookies will bake thinner and may spread too much.

• Getting the cookies to crinkle – You want to roll each cookie ball in granulated sugar FIRST, and then in the powdered sugar. As the cookies bake, the sugars absorb the moisture from the cookies and you want the powdered sugar layer to absorb the least amount of sugar. So the granulated sugar layer does the legwork here. Make sure to coat them generously with the powdered sugar, this is what makes the ‘crinkle’ in these crinkle cookies. As the cookies rise and spread, the sugar coating breaks and makes the crinkle effect. It’s my favourite part of these cookies.

Ingredients for these Lemon Cookies with Raspberry Curd

• Lemons
• Sugar
• Butter
• Egg + yolk
• Lemon juice + extract
• All - Purpose flour
• Baking Soda
• Powdered Sugar
• Raspberries
• Salt

Happy baking!