Swedish Citronsnittar – Lemon and White Chocolate Slice Cookies

Spring is in full bloom in Bergen now and I was in the mood for a fresh and summery dessert, so I decided to make the easiest lemon cookie recipe I know. Citronsnittar, or Swedish lemon slices, are quick and easy cookies to make, especially as you don’t even need to shape the dough into individual cookies. Instead, you simply roll the dough into long logs and slice it into cookies after it’s finished baking.

This time I topped them with coarsely chopped white chocolate and wow did these disappear quickly! They’re soft and a tiny bit chewy and I love the white chocolate and lemon together.

Citronsnittar are like a fancier version of Swedish butter cookies. And if you want to try another sliced cookie recipe I also love the chocolate version, chokladsnittar.

Tips

Be sure to use softened butter in these. Not only will softened butter be easier to cream with the sugar, but this ensures you get the right texture for the cookie dough.

Traditionally citronsnittar are made with light syrup, which is commonly used in baking here in Scandinavia. Light syrup is similar to British golden syrup (like Lyle’s Golden Syrup), or light treacle.

However since light treacle isn’t commonly used in the US, you can instead use a combination of half maple syrup and half honey in these.

You do need to use both maple syrup and honey. I’ve tried with only maple syrup and the texture wasn’t right – these need the stickiness of the honey as well.

Since the syrup is so sticky, instead of pouring it into my measuring spoon I press my spoon into the cookie dough to make a tablespoon sized well and fill that instead.

I use about a tablespoon of lemon zest in these (from one small lemon), but you could use less if you only want a slight hint of lemon.

I prefer to use a scale to weigh out the flour, but if you’re using measuring cups be sure to pour the flour into the cups instead of using the cups to scoop the flour, which packs the flour down too much. If you do accidentally add too much flour, you can add a bit of neutral oil to the cookie dough to help bring it together. You should be able to pack the dough together into a ball.

Divide the ball of dough into four pieces and roll them out into logs a little shorter than the length of your baking sheet.

Press the logs down gently and then press the coarsely chopped white chocolate into the top of the cookie dough logs.

Bake the cookies two logs (one baking sheet) at a time. The dough will flatten considerably as they bake, so you need plenty of space between the logs. Bake them for about 12 minutes, until the edges are just starting to become golden. Check on them a few minutes early to make sure the white chocolate doesn’t burn.

Let the logs cool for two minutes and then slice them diagonally into cookies. You can use a pastry or pizza wheel or a dough cutter (or knife) to slice the cookies. Be sure only to wait a couple of minutes before slicing them, as they might break if you try to slice them when they are fully cooled.

You can switch the recipe from US measurements to metric by clicking from “US Customary” to “Metric” under Ingredients.