Easter Lemon shortbread recipe

A simple, tangy Easter shortbread recipe you can cut into rabbit and egg shapes.

Our Easter shortbread recipe is so simple to follow and makes a lovely springtime treat. Lemon lifts and lightens the biscuits, and is a good contrast to the traditional spiced Easter biscuits. Plus there are no currants or raisins in these - great if you have picky eaters who don't like dried fruit. Kids will enjoy helping to make and decorate these, with Smarties or coloured dragées. This recipe makes 8-12 biscuits but if you've got extra guests coming or you're baking for a bake sale, it's easy to double all the ingredients to make two batches.

Ingredients

For this Easter recipe you will need:

• 150g (5oz) plain flour
• 50g (1¾oz) caster sugar
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
• 100g (3½oz) unsalted butter

For the decoration:

• Tubes of ready-to-use icing fitted with writing piping tubes

For the rabbits:

• Blue- and pink-coloured sweets e.g. Smarties
• Pink sugar

For the eggs:

• Multi-coloured sugar dragées or Smarties
• Easter egg and/or rabbit cutters
• Baking sheets, greased or lined

Method

1. Set the oven to moderately hot: 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4. Tip the flour into a bowl and stir in the sugar and lemon zest. Add the butter and rub it in until the mixture starts to bind together. Alternatively, whizz all the ingredients together in a food processor or until the ingredients bind together into a dough. Wrap in cling film and chill for 15 minutes.
2. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and use the cutter(s) to cut out shapes. Lay the biscuits on baking sheets and chill for another 10 minutes.
3. Bake in the centre of the oven for 15-18 mins, or until they are a light-golden colour. Remove from the oven and leave them to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
4. Decorate the cold biscuits using the tubes of icing. While the icing is still soft, stick the coloured sweets on to the rabbits for the eyes and noses, and sprinkle the pink sugar on to the rabbit ears. Stick the coloured sugar balls on to the egg-shaped biscuits. Leave the icing to set before serving the biscuits.

Top tip for making Easter shortbread

Chilling is one of the most important steps in a shortbread recipe, and it needs to be done twice: once before shaping and cutting, and once after. This makes sure the butter in the recipe hardens after mixing, so it cooks at the right speed and gives the best texture.

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