Tender low carb sugar cookies with a sweet lemony glaze. And make your own sugar-free sanding sugar for a colourful, festive Easter treat.
You know, I like to think I am pretty adept at this low carb gluten-free baking thing, but there are times when I come face to face with the fact that I don’t really have a clue what I am doing. As I joked on Facebook the other day, it’s all a big crapshoot. I get an idea, I consider the properties of the ingredients I can use, I head to the kitchen and I get a-mixing. Most of the time, this approach works really well for me and the results are as good as or even better than I had hoped. Every so often, however, my dough, my batter or my sauce just won’t do what I as I ask and I can’t seem to coax it into behaving, no matter how hard I try. Thankfully, the problems tend to lie with appearance and texture, but not with taste. So if it tastes good, it’s usually salvageable in some form or other. And if I’m lucky, I can regroup and get something good out of the deal.
These lovely little cookies were never meant to be a rolled, cut out cookie. My original intention was to make them into the pretty twisted Lemony Greek Easter Cookies (also known as koulourakia) I saw on my friend Erin’s blog, Dinners, Dishes and Desserts. I saw them and instantly wanted to make a low carb version, and I really thought I had the right idea for the dough. But my dough thought otherwise, apparently and just would NOT hold together enough to be twisted into shape. Or rather, it would, but not without a serious amount of coaxing and effort on my part. I felt it would be unfair to bring my readers a recipe that took that much work. But the lemony flavour of the dough was so nice, I couldn’t scrap it altogether. I ended up gathering all the dough back together and rolling it out for sugar cookies. Then a little lemony glaze and some homemade low carb sanding sugar, and I ended up with delicious cookies worthy of any Easter celebration. Phew!
Please see my Iced Lemon Sugar Cookies on A Sweet Life Diabetes Magazine.
Lauren at Keep It Sweet says
I love when things don’t turn out as planned but turn into something else great. Your cookies are so pretty!
Lisa @ Garnish with Lemon says
One of the most delicious mistakes! I love lemon! 🙂
Beth @ The First Year says
Carolyn, I am dreaming about all things lemon, so this is perfect!!
Carolyn says
Me too. It’s a lemon-y time of year!
Sarah G says
Awesome! Love lemon!
Please don’t give up on the Greek Easter cookie idea, though. When I was growing up our elderly neighbor always made us those at Easter, except they had these unusual but scrumptious little black seeds on top. I have missed those for many a year and would so love to share them in a healthy version to my family!
Carolyn says
I will keep thinking about it!
Erin @ Dinners, Dishes and Desserts says
I love your low carb, gluten free version! They are super cute, and perfect for spring!
Veronica says
What about shaping them like a pretzel, or “praying hands”? We used to do this with our children at Easter, using Bonnie Stern’s recipe, but it should work with yours too. Thank you for all the wonderful recipes, I’ve used many of them and really appreciate your “gifting” them to us. Have you ever considered making GFLC crumpets?
Happy Easter!
Susan the farm quilter says
Just looking at your pictures of your cookies has my mouth watering!!! Thanks for sharing another fabulous recipe!!!
Barb Sacco says
Carolyn, if I wanted to make this luscious cookie with other flavors, what to use in place of the lemon juice? Does it have to be an acidic like lemon juice, or can it be any liquid like almond milk, etc. I’d love to do this in several flavors, like mint, orange (easy swap!) almond, etc. Our charitable group does bake sales to raise money, and these are easy and would not be expensive to make, but we would like to have several flavor options.
Carolyn says
I think it really could be anything. It does not rely on the acidity.
Barb Sacco says
Thanks so much! I appreciate your time.
Dawn says
Hi Carolyn, I’m dying to make a low carb fruit pizza for Mother’s Day (treat to myself!). Would this make a good replacement for the sugar cookie crust or would the Halloween Cut out cookies work better? I know you have a chocolate fruit pizza recipe but I’m missing the chocolate gene most women have and would pick almost anything over chocolate. Thank you!!!
Carolyn says
The Halloween cut out cookies would make an awesome cookie crust! I think you’d bake it about the same but watch it carefully.
Dawn says
Thank you so much!!!! I absolutely love your recipes! 🙂
Melissa says
Iced lemon sugar cookies – wanted to make these but link leads to a blank page on A Sweet Life. If I do a search on A Sweet Life and click in the link, it leads to the same blank page that your link does.
Carolyn says
They must be having trouble with their website because another page does it as well. I am letting them know.
Carolyn says
It’s all fixed now, their site crashed this morning.
Melissa says
Thanks – time to get abakin’ then!
charlotte says
These look really good- thank you so much for the recipe
Trish says
Being that I absolutely hate to roll out cookies, can these be dropped onto the baking sheet instead of rolled?
Susan says
hey there! I was just wondering if this icing dries like reg cookie icing, or if it stays wet?
Carolyn says
It dries.
Erin says
Hi, these look great! If I want to swap out the Swerve for thm Sweet Blend what would be the ratio? Thank-you!
Carolyn says
I’d do 1 tbsp for every 1/4 cup. Not sure how it will work in the icing, though. That requires the consistency of powdered Swerve.
Valeria says
How are these without the glaze and icing? They seem easy enough, but I’m generally not a fan of glaces and icings. Are these good enough just as rolled cut cookies?
Valeria says
Oh, and Are these crispy/crunchy or soft/tender. Thanks again.
Carolyn says
Yup, should be pretty good that way.
Annie says
Can the almond and coconut flours be replaced with THM Baking Blend? These cookies look so yummy! Thank you!