These raspberry cookies are bursting with fruity raspberries and fresh lemon flavor. They have a soft, buttery and chewy texture, are easy to make and always disappear fast!
Table of Contents
Lemon Raspberry Cookies
I love to make fruit desserts during spring and summer. These bright and refreshing raspberry cookies are a favorite, as well as mini fruit tarts, glazed lemon cookies, strawberry crumb bars and lemon bars.
Sweet, tart raspberries are combined with the bright zing of lemon and a buttery cookie base that tastes like a mix between an orange scone and shortbread cookie. Topped with a lemon powdered sugar glaze, everyone loves these cookies!
If you love lemon, other favorites include this lemon sugar cookie recipe and lemon loaf cake.
Ingredient Notes
Find the full printable recipe with specific measurements below.
- All-purpose flour
- Granulated sugar
- Baking powder
- Cold salted butter
- Heavy whipping cream
- Fresh lemon zest and lemon juice
- Frozen raspberries
- Lemon glaze
Fresh or Frozen Raspberries
I recommend using frozen raspberries when making this raspberry cookies recipe instead of using fresh raspberries.
Frozen berries are easier to fold into the dough than fresh berries (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.
How to Make Raspberry Cookies
In a large bowl, whisk dry ingredients including the flour, sugar, and baking powder. Mix in butter with a pastry cutter, whisk, or your hands until crumbly and combined.
Stir in heavy cream, lemon zest, and lemon juice until combined and a thick dough forms. Gently fold or press in raspberries.
Using a large cookie scoop, spoon dough 2 inches apart onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly golden around the edges.
Once cookies have cooled completely, combine glaze ingredients in a small bowl and drizzle over the soft cookies.
Tips and Variations
- Cold butter. Similar to making homemade biscuits, you want to use cold cubed butter. This gives the raspberry cookies a soft and thick texture, with a bit of crumble.
- Drop cookies. Simply use a spoon (or cookie scoop) to drop thefruity cookies onto the baking sheet. That’s it! No rolling or flattening cookie dough balls required.
- Fold raspberries gently. Try not to get heavy handed when folding in the frozen raspberries. Fold them in gently, so they stay intact for the most part.
- White chocolate raspberry cookies. White chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips would taste delicious. Fold them in when you fold in the frozen raspberries.
- Without lemon: Skip adding the lemon and use vanilla extract instead.
- Glaze. Make sure lemon raspberry cookies have cooled completely before adding the glaze. Try a cream cheese glaze or omit the glaze and dust with powdered sugar.
- Strawberries instead? Try these strawberry cookies!
If you love dessert recipes with lemon try lemon brownies, 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.
- Make dough. In a large bowl, whisk together 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 teaspoons baking powder. Mix 1/2 cup cold butter in with a pastry cutter, whisk, or use your hands until it's crumbly and combined.
- Add wet ingredients. Stir in 2/3 cup heavy cream, 1/2 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.
- Drop cookies .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 1 cup powdered sugar and 2 Tablespoons 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!
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,add your frozen berries to the cookie batter last, stir gently 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.
Once the cookies have cooled completely, store in a zip top bag or airtight container at room temperature for about 4 to 5 days. Freeze lemon raspberry cookies in the freezer for 2-3 months.
Categorized as: American, Cookies, Desserts, Freezer-Friendly, Frosted Cookies, Fruit Desserts, Kid-Friendly, Nut-Free
Jamielyn Nye is the founder and recipe creator at I Heart Naptime. She is the author of the I Heart Naptime Cookbook and shares easy family-friendly recipes and desserts for every occasion.
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.