Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies: Lemon Cookie Cups

Cookie Cups:
2 ¾ cups flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Lemon Curd Filling:
½ cup butter
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs plus 4 egg yolks
zest from 1 lemon (about 1 tsp)
¾ cup fresh lemon juice (about 3-4 lemons)

Powdered sugar to garnish (about 2 Tbs)
Optional: mini candies to garnish

Cookie Cups:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly spray mini muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray (ideally the baking spray with flour).

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla until just combined. Gradually mix in dry ingredients until combined.

Roll dough into 1” balls (about half of a medium cookie scoop) and place in greased muffin tins; Do not press dough into the bottoms of the pan. Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until edges are just barely brown.

While cookies are warm, press the insides of the cookies down to make an indentation for the filling (I used a wooden cookie press tool). Cool 5 minutes in pan, and then gently twist cookies to remove cookie cups. Cool on a wire rack before filling.

Lemon Curd Filling:
In a medium saucepan, but not over heat: Use an electric mixer to cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and egg yolks and mix to combine. Beat in lemon zest and juice. Scrape edges of pan with a spatula to make sure mixture in combined.

Heat lemon filling over medium heat, stirring constantly, for about 5-7 minutes, or until mixture is smooth and thickened. Remove from heat and spoon 1-2 tsp of lemon curd into each cookie cup (filling should come close to the top edge of the cookie cups).

Refrigerate for 30 minutes for lemon filling to cool. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Sprinkle with sifted powder sugar just before serving. (I also added some mini candy hearts for decoration.)

Makes about 4 dozen mini cookie cups

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