Soft and fluffy raspberry cookies are easy to make and bursting with flavors of fresh lemon zest and a sweet lemon glaze. The bright fruity flavors mixed with the buttery cookie base are a match made in heaven!
I love desserts with a hint of lemon! Other favorite include this lemon brownies recipe, my lemon sugar cookie recipe and lemon loaf cake.
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Lemon Raspberry Cookie Recipe
I love to make all types of fruit desserts during the spring and summer. The flavors are so bright and refreshing. These raspberry cookies are a favorite, as well as mini fruit tarts, glazed lemon cookies, strawberry crumb bars and lemon bars.
Let’s talk about the lemon and raspberry flavor combination. The sweetness from the raspberries combined with the bright zing from the lemon is irresistible and tastes just like summer. Then combine those flavors with the buttery and creamy cookie base, followed by the lemon powdered sugar glaze. Does it get any better than that?!
These raspberry cookies taste like a mix between a orange scone and a shortbread cookie. They have a soft and thick texture with a slight crumble. Trust me, they are absolutely delicious. Everyone was begging for more!
Why You Will Love These Cookies
- Soft and chewy: The interior of these raspberry cookies is so fluffy!
- Bright flavors: Sweet raspberries and tangy lemon pair perfectly with a lovely sweetness and mild zing.
- Stunning look: These cookies are truly beauties to look at with their bright pink and red color and then lemon glaze.
- Seasonal favorite: These lemon raspberry cookies are breath of fresh air in the spring, taste like raspberry lemonade in the summer and yet would look beautiful on a holiday cookie platter, too!
Recipe Ingredients
If you love raspberries, you need to give these egg-free cookies a try!
Find the full printable recipe with specific measurements below.
- All-purpose flour: This gives the cookies structure! I have not tried it with any other flour including gluten-free flour or almond flour.
- Granulated sugar: Balances the tart flavors with sweetness and gives the sugar cookies their crisp edges.
- Baking powder: Since these cookies have no egg, this gives the cookies some lift and rise.
- Salted butter: Cubed cold butter is used to keep these cookies fluffy. If you are using unsalted butter, you may need to add a pinch of salt to the dough. I have not tried this with a plant based butter or vegan baking stick, but it may work.
- Heavy whipping cream: This helps keep the raspberry cookies soft by adding a little fat.
- Lemon: You will need fresh lemon that has been zested and juiced. Do not use bottled lemon juice for the best flavor.
- Frozen raspberries: Do not thaw your raspberries.
- Lemon glaze: Fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar.
Fresh or Frozen Raspberries?
I recommend using frozen raspberries when making this raspberry cookies recipe. They are easier to fold into the dough than fresh raspberries (without getting all mushy) and are less watery. Frozen raspberries are still a bit fragile, so make sure to gently fold them into the dough.
Variations
- If you love really lemon, you can add a little more zest into the dough. Check out these tips for how to zest a lemon.
- You could make these without the lemon flavor if preferred. Omit the lemon juice and zest and add in a dash of vanilla extract for more flavor.
- White chocolate chips would taste delicious mixed into the dough. Fold them in when you fold in the frozen raspberries.
- Strawberries instead? Try these strawberry cookies!
- Use a cream cheese glaze for a more rich and tangy flavor.
- Omit the glaze all together or add a dusting of powdered sugar before serving.
How to Make Raspberry Cookies
Before starting to make these raspberry cookies, prep your baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 350°F. This is important so your frozen raspberries do not have any chance to thaw and turn the batter blue!
- Cut butter with dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and baking powder. Mix butter in with a pastry cutter, whisk, or your hands until crumbly and combined.
- Add wet ingredients: Stir in heavy cream, lemon zest, and lemon juice just until combined and a thick dough forms. If the dough is too dry, add 1 more Tablespoon cream.
- Add the berries: Gently fold or press in raspberries. Do not stir vigorously or your berries will become crushed and color the dough.
- Scoop and bake: Using a large cookie scoop, spoon dough 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly golden around the edges. Let cool 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack.
- Cool and glaze: Once cookies have cooled completely, combine glaze ingredients in a small bowl and drizzle over the cookies.
Expert Baking Tips
- Cold butter. Similar to making homemade biscuits, you want to use cold cubed butter (I like to place mine in the freezer for about 10 to 15 minutes prior to using). This gives the raspberry cookies a soft and thick texture, with a bit of crumble.
- Cutting the butter. To cut the butter into the flour, you can use a pastry cutter, whisk or even your hands. This shouldn’t be a super smooth dough, so make sure not to over work it. Mix until the ingredients just barely come together.
- Fold raspberries gently. Try not to get heavy handed when folding in the frozen raspberries. Take your time and fold them in gently, so that they stay intact for the most part.
- Drop cookies. Is there anything easier than a drop cookie? No rolling the dough or flattening the cookie dough balls out. Simply use a spoon (or cookie scoop) to drop the cookies onto the baking sheet. That’s it!
- Don’t overbake. These raspberry cookies only need to bake for about 12 to 15 minutes. Every oven is different, so make sure to keep an eye on them. Take them out when the edges are lightly golden, but not fully brown. If you bake them too long, they won’t be as soft and the texture will dry out.
- Let cool. Make sure the cookies have cooled completely before adding the glaze. If they are still warm, the glaze could melt.
FAQs
This happens when the juice from the raspberries reacts with the baking powder. You cookies may also look a little gray or even a greenish color. To avoid this, make sure to add your frozen berries to the cookie batter last, stir gently so as to not disturb them and bake immediately. If you need to bake subsequent pans, keep dough chilled until ready to bake remaining batter.
Yes, if you do not add the raspberries to the batter you could make the dough ahead of time and store in the refrigerator.
If you have over baked your cookies they will start to harden as they cool. Take your cookies out of the oven right as they start to turn golden brown at the edges. Also, be sure to store your cookies in an airtight container as soon as they are cool.
If you find that your raspberry lemon cookies do not have as much chewy texture as you would like, try under baking the cookies next time. You could also add a teaspoon of cornstarch to the dough as that helps prevent gluten development.
How to Store Raspberry Cookies
Once the cookies have cooled completely, store in a zip top bag or airtight container at room temperature for about 4 to 5 days.
You can also freeze lemon raspberry cookies in the freezer for up to 2-3 months. You can either microwave a raspberry cookie directly from the freeze to enjoy it warm or let the cookie thaw on counter for a few hours before enjoying.
If you love desserts with a hint of lemon try this lemon cake mix cookies, lemon blueberry muffins or lemon poke cake!
More Recipes with Raspberries
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Raspberry Cookies
Video
Ingredients
Cookies
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ cup salted butter , cubed
- ⅔ cup heavy whipping cream , plus more as needed
- ½ lemon , zested and juiced
- 1 cup roughly chopped frozen raspberries
Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
Instructions
Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and baking powder. Mix butter in with a pastry cutter, whisk, or your hands until crumbly and combined.
- Stir in heavy cream, lemon zest, and lemon juice just until combined and a thick dough forms. If the dough is too dry, add 1 more Tablespoon cream. Gently fold or press in raspberries.
- Using a large cookie scoop, spoon dough 2 inches apart onto the baking sheet.
- Bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly golden around the edges. Let cool 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Glaze
- In a medium bowl, stir together powdered sugar and lemon juice until smooth.
- Drizzle over cooled cookies. Enjoy!
Notes
- If you love really lemon, you can add a little more zest into the dough. Check out these tips for how to zest a lemon.
- You could make these without the lemon flavor if preferred. Omit the lemon juice and zest and add in a dash of vanilla extract for more flavor.
- White chocolate chips would taste delicious mixed into the dough. Fold them in when you fold in the frozen raspberries.
- Use a cream cheese glaze for a more rich and tangy flavor.
- Omit the glaze all together or add a dusting of powdered sugar before serving.
Nutrition
Nutrition provided is an estimate. It will vary based on specific ingredients used.
Did you make this recipe? Don’t forget to give it a star rating below!
These Raspberry cookies sound yummy, I will have to make some, but please help, what in your recipe does TB mean,
TB means Tablespoon! :)
is there anything to substitute the lemon juice for? I’m allergic to all citrus fruits and I really want to try your cookies. please get back in touch with me at the email address above thank you.
Hi Tracy! I’m not sure what to substitute the lemon juice for but you could try leaving it out.
These cookies are absolutely delicious!!! I love that they are not too overpoweringly sweet which the icing makes up for that so therefore it is a perfect combination. The recipe was very easy to follow and very explanatory…. I did add a little extra flour beings my raspberries were extra juicy. Thanks so much for sharing
I’m glad you liked them Amy! Thanks for stopping by again to tell us how it went! :)
I am a grandmother and cookies from my mother were my son’s favorite and memories made by them most dear.
I saw this recipe, have been a kitchen centered person for a long long time.
Here is what I did to adjust this fabulous recipe to my taste. First of all I used a half cup of milk mixed with sour cream to add to the batter, not heavy cream (I didn’t have any)
I am a nut so added some walnut pieces, wished I had had pecans but didn’t .
I also soaked the raspberries in the lemon sugar overnight, since I wanted to serve these the day I made them. I did not use the raspberry juice in the batter but split the icing so I would have some red and some white, putting raspberry juice in half and lemon juice in the other half. I also cooked them more like a half hour to get the consistency that I liked.
The beauty and joy of cooking or baking is creating something to your taste. I like to experiment and if I fail, so what. These were fabulous and so special in July when raspberries are everywhere.
I started out 41 year sago as a young bride, hopeless in the kitchen but a love of food and good taste… I ended up 20 years later teaching cooking.. I t just takes a sense of adventure… Now that my family is grown and gone, my fondest memories centered and still center around the table….
Thanks for commenting Maureen! Your adjustments to this recipe sound wonderful. I love creating recipes to my taste as well, it is such a fun adventure!
These sound soooo good! I can’t wait to try them. When I got to the bottom of the recipe and saw the picture of your(?) little girl…she just made me smile! She is precious!
I made these tonight and was disappointed with the outcome. 2 tsp of baking powder seemed like a lot, and I am at high altitude, so I cut back on that. Maybe that was my mistake. But the dough that formed just prior to adding raspberries was like pie crust dough – i.e. you could mold it into a ball and use it as a shot put – so there was definitely no “folding” in the raspberries. More like mashing them in with my hands. The cookies (36 of them) turned out very soft and tasted “flat” like others said, even with a sprinkling of salt just to try and fix it. I’ll continue to drool over the photos of them, but not the real things.
Hi Alison! I’m sorry you didn’t get the results you wanted, I am thinking maybe your butter wasn’t soft enough. The dough is supposed to be soft with a slight crumble, but not firm like pie crust.
Totally failed. Wish i could show the picture.. Not sure why but didnt taste very good. I used self rising. Finished Dough looked awesome but cookies were flat and Blah. Thanks anyway but i think ill try something else next time. Lol def not a baker i guess. I also used wax instead in parchment. So sad they didnt work out.
Ah, so sorry they did not turn out for you. These ones are a little trickier with the dough, but practice definitely makes perfect. Try one of these: http://www.iheartnaptime.net/best-christmas-cookies/ -I hope you have a happy holidays!
They have just been placed in the oven.
My only concern was it says to “fold in” the raspberries… but the dough isn’t exactly that “foldable”. So they end up getting just mixed in… and the raspberries themselves are quite watery and it ends up being more of a watered down dough. Also I ended up with more than 2 dozen, wasn’t sure what size you were making these at! We shall see how these little cookies turn out. I’m hoping for the best.
I did add the sugar correctly though, I saw that has been an issue :)
Love these! Raspberry is my husband’s favorite flaovr
Great cookie recipe! Thank you
DELISH!
loved the raspberry cookies, thank you!
The pictures are beautiful, and the recipe looks and sounds delicious, but unfortunately the recipe is not written with all the information. I’m pretty sure the sugar is meant to be split- and I’m guessing it’s 1 1/2 T on the raspberries and 1/2 c in the dough. Unfortunately I didn’t realize the missing information until I’d already added the full amount of sugar to the berries and moved on to step 2. Also, the dough is more of a sweet biscuit or scone dough than a cookie dough. Even with the mistake I didn’t want to waste all those good raspberries, so am trying to bake them anyhow. No idea how this will turn out!
I have to agree with you! I really hope the author replies and clarifies this! Mine are cooling right now so I’m interested to see how they’ll taste.
Hey there! Sorry about that. Yes to clarify I split the sugar and only put 1 1/2 TB on the raspberries. Hopefully yours turned out okay. :)
Back again to make these this year – they were still divine! ;)
Oh I LOVE these cookies, I am going to have to make myself a batch this week too! :)
I love eating berries. In fact, if I crave to eat berries I bought 2 kilos and I eat them all. Since I like eating berries, raspberry cookies are perfect for me.
Ooooh … looks delicious!
I am so excited to make these! I went to the store and got everything, or so I thought. I got home and forgot the butter :( Guess they will have to wait till tomorrow! Thinking I might drizzle them with a little chocolate.
I adore raspberry anything. Seriously. It’s one of my all time favorite foods.
These look amazing! Pinning for future baking.