Lemon Meringue Cookies

With the warmer weather approaching, this blog was crying out for a nice citrusy dessert recipe. These lemon meringue cookies are light and sweet with a zing of lemon flavour.

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The Cookie

I think the key part of any recipe like this is making sure your base product is really good. For this recipe, we needed a nice sturdy recipe for the cookie as we're adding a lot of moisture back in when we decorate it later on. I like a soft cookie, so to balance that out I knew I wanted them nice and thick.

To make sure these cookies stayed thick and sturdy, the most important part was to make sure the dough was properly chilled before they were baked. I always chill my cookie dough for at least an hour, but if you live somewhere warmer or your oven runs hot, you might want to make it two. I also used room temperature butter in this recipe rather than melted butter, as that can help prevent them from fizzling out and going flat.

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Decoration

The main thing that makes these cookies stand out is their meringue top. As such, we want to make sure it's nice and fluffy. We also need to torch the top to make it that gorgeous golden brown. I use my kitchen blow torch to do this which would honestly be my recommendation, but if you can't get your hands on one I know some people use the grill instead on a high temperature for a minute or so.

When making the meringue, it's really important all your utensils and equipment are clean. If your whisk or mixing bowl have any left over flecks in, it can prevent your egg whites from whipping up properly. I also recommend adding your sugar in really small increments as adding too much at once can knock the air out of your mixture.

For the lemon curd, I just used a store brought one and warmed it up ever so slightly to make it easier to swipe on top. However, if you want to make your own, crack on!

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Method:

1. Cream the butter, 100g caster sugar and all of your brown sugar together until lighter in colour. Save the rest of the caster sugar for later

2. Add 1 egg and your vanilla extract and mix these in until they're just incorporated into the dough. You can also add half a teaspoon of lemon extract here if you want them to be slightly more zingy, but I missed that out

3. Add both of your flours and mix again until a dough is formed. Add your chocolate chips and the zest of your lemon and then mix these in too. It can sometimes be easier at this point to just get your hands in there as the dough can be quite stiff

4. Roll your dough into ping pong sized balls and place them on a lined tray

5. Pop them into the fridge and leave them to chill for at least 1 hour

6. At the end of the hour, heat your oven to 160c fan and remove your cookies from the fridge

7. Bake for 10-12 minutes and then remove your cookies from the oven. Your cookies should be going slightly golden, but will still have a soft centre

8. Leave the cookies on the side to cool and get a clean bowl and whisk to make your meringue

9. Seperate your remaining two eggs and whisk the whites with an electric mixer until they turn white and slightly fluffy. Keep mixing and slowly add your remaining 100g of caster sugar. Your meringue mixture should form into still peaks when you stop mixing

10. Once your cookies have cooled, add a teaspoon of lemon curd to the top of each cookie

11. Add your meringue mixture to a piping bag and using a star shaped tip, pipe a swirl of meringue on top of your lemon curd

12. Take your blowtorch and gently toast your meringue until it turns brown

13. Serve and enjoy! These cookies will generally keep for around 5 days, if they last that long!

This recipe was adapted from an Instagram post on @mykitchendrawer