Poppy seeds butter cookies with lemon icing

My favourite soft butter cookies baked with ground poppy seeds and decorated with lemon icing. Perfect to go with your morning coffee or earl grey tea in the afternoon! They look so pretty, that they make a great gift, wrapped in a cellophane bag with a ribbon and a gift tag.

Why make this recipe?

• Using ground poppy seeds makes the flavour really pop out!
• The combination of the poppy seeds and the zingy lemon icing is simply genius

Any specialist equipment needed?

You will need a cookie cutter – I find that round is best. If you don’t have a suitable cookie cutter, you can always cut the dough with a knife into small squares. Aim for about 4-5 cm max.

Rolling pin is handy, but if you don’t have one use a large glass or just your hands.

Baking parchment makes the rolling easier, as you can put the dough in between two sheets of the paper and it won’t stick to the rolling pin.

My top tips on making this recipe successfully the first time round

• Roll out the dough first and then chill for 20-30 minutes to prevent the cookie dough spreading
• Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes and don’t let them to brown too much. Check underneath if you are not sure, they should be only slightly brown/golden

Ingredients & Possible Substitutions

Flour

I’ve used plain or all-purpose cake flour. I’ve not tried (yet) this recipe with different types of flours, but no doubt this recipe can be made with gluten-free flours (make sure you add a 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum to replace the gluten).

Poppy seeds

Poppy seeds are the main ingredient in this recipe and you will need to make sure they they are ground before you add them to the recipe.

You can either buy already ground poppy seeds (usually in Polish or Eastern Europe shops) or ground your own. To ground your poppy seeds use a food processor or something like a manual coffee grinder.

If you are measuring this recipe with cups, I’ve measured the poppy seeds when they were ground, not before (otherwise you’ll end up with too many).

The reason why I’ve used ground poppy seeds is because you can get the full impact of the flavour and of course the combination of lemon in the icing is really good.

Butter

I’ve used unsalted butter, which I’ve softened for about 5 sec in a microwave. You need to be careful, when you do this, but 5-10 sec usually does the trick of softening the butter without the butter collapsing in the middle.

Sugar

Unlike other cookie recipes, I’ve used fine, confectioners, icing sugar for my recipe. I find that it makes a softer texture. Because we are adding lemon icing on the top, the biscuit base doesn’t actually have that much sugar in. I found this the hard way, when once I’ve added far too much salt in!

Egg yolk

Yes, we are not going to use the whole egg! You’ll need about 1-2 teaspoon of egg white for the lemon icing and the rest can be added to your breakfast omelette!

You can also keep the egg white in airtight container in the fridge and use it later as an egg wash for other baking instead of using substitutions.

I often find that older recipes use just egg yolks to make the cookies or biscuits more luxurious. Over the years, people started to use the whole eggs because that’s more economical and plus what do you do with the leftover egg white? Make marshmallows, pavlovas or meringues every time you bake biscuits?! Well, now there is a thought….

Salt

Only pinch is needed, but don’t forget it! I makes a big difference in flavour.

Vanilla extract

I’ve been always adding vanilla extract to this recipe, but to be honest if you skip it, you won’t probably notice it. The poppy seeds flavour is quite strong, which makes it a bit tricky for the vanilla flavour to come out.

Ingredients for the lemon icing

• 100 grams icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon egg white

Use fresh lemon juice, if you can, it will make a big difference. If you are not too sure about using fresh, uncooked, egg white, you can leave it out and just add a bit more lemon juice or water. The egg white helps to hold everything together, it’s like a glue! It also helps to whip out the lemon icing into a very white, silky, smooth texture.

How to make poppy seeds cookies

• Weight or measure out all the dry ingredients first – the flour, poppy seeds, icing sugar and large pinch of salt. Place in a large bowl and mix all together.
• Make sure your butter is softened before adding in to the flour mixture.
• Add the butter, egg yolk and vanilla extract to the flour mixture and mix all together. I start with a wooden mixing spoon, but then I also use my hands to get everythig mixed in perfectly. You should end up with a soft, but firm (ish) dough.

• Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking parchment to about 8 mm thickness.
• Place on the baking tray with the baking parchments and leave in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes to firm up.
• Preheat your oven to 160C or 180 Fan, 350 F or Gas mark 3.
• Cut out your cookies shapes. I’ve used 5 cm cutter.
• Use up all the dough and when you are re-rolling your dough try to handle it as little as you possibly can.

• Place your cookie shapes on a baking tray lined with baking parchment, making sure you leave a gap between them. They are not going to rise or expand very much, but you never know!
• Bake for 10 min or until they are slighly golden. They shouldn’t change their colour too much – if they do, you baked them a little too long.
• Leave to cool down on a cooling rack.

To make the lemon icing

• Mix together the icing sugar, lemon juice and egg white to make a runny icing. You can use spoon to spread the icing on the cookies or use a piping bag to make a drizzle effect.
• Sprinkle extra poppy seeds on the top or lemon rind or similar decorations.
• Leave to set completely (this could take about 24 hrs, if you are thinking of packing your biscuits away, but you can eat them straightaway).

How else you can make this recipe?

The ground poppy seeds can be replaced with ground walnuts. The lemon icing will work well with the walnuts flavour, so there is no need to change anything else.

Allergies & dietary requirements

This recipe contains gluten, dairy, but is nut free.

Batch size

This recipe makes 40 biscuits with 5 cm wide round cookie cutter. You’ll get different amount depending on what size cookie cutter you use.

Scaling up this recipe

This recipe can be easily doubled or tripled in size, if you are baking for a special occasion or a large party.

How far in advance can I make this recipe?

These poppy seeds butter biscuits with lemon icing are at their best 24-48 hrs after you bake them. If you want to wrap them or serve them displayed on the plate or tray, the lemon icing needs to be completely dry, which can take a minimum of 12 hrs. You can eat them straightaway, but I find that the flavour improves with time and they also soften a bit after 24 hrs.

How to store cookies

Once you ice the cookies, leave them out uncovered for a minimum of 12 hrs. After this time, try to touch one and if it’s dry and hard, you can pack them in a box (in between layers of fresh baking parchment. I usually leave them for about 24 hrs to be on the save side, because if your icing is a little too runny, it might take up to 12-24 hrs to harden.

This recipe and me

I love poppy seeds as a flavour and since most poppy seeds recipes use whole poppy seeds I was keen on trying recipes with ground poppy seeds. I’ve already baked filled poppy seeds cakes and added them to breakfast pancakes, so these biscuits were the next obvious choice.

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