Over the weekend I celebrated my 32nd birthday. (It still seems so weird to say that I’m in my 30’s.) So, this year, I wanted to make something I would actually like for my birthday. Believe it or not, I don’t really like cake. I know, I know! How can the cake lady not like cake!? And if we are being completely honest here, (I’m trusting you all with this information!) I HATE cupcakes! ***GASP!!!*** That almost seems like cake world blasphemy. I love to make a decorate cakes, but I would rather not eat them. Really, I’m just not a huge sweets person in general.
However, if you put the words lemon and raspberry together into the same recipe, I’m almost guaranteed to like it. Which made it a no-brainer to create something lemon raspberry for my “special day”. I’ve also been seeing these adorable tarts popping up all over the place that basically look like two large cookies with some creamy deliciousness in between and on top. Plus some pretties to finish it up, because it’s no fun if it isn’t pretty! I figured what better excuse to try one? But, of course, I had to put my own spin on it.
So here’s what I came up with. Recipes included as well as a quick video walkthrough on how I put it all together. And, as an added bonus, this lemon sugar cookie recipe can be used for cut out and decorated sugar cookies as well! Yay! I topped it with small cutouts of the same sugar cookie recipe, meringue cookies, and fresh raspberries, lemon slices, and mint leaves. Yummo! My hubby and his friends devoured it. But I did manage to get a couple bites before it disappeared.

Prep Time | 30 minutes |
Cook Time | 13 minutes |
Passive Time | 40 minutes |
Servings |
|
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons lemon extract (lemon flavoring or emulsion would work too)
- zest of 2 lemons
- 3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- juice of 1/2 lemon
Ingredients
|
![]() |
- Cream butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl.
- Beat in egg, lemon extract, and lemon zest.
- In a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.
- Gradually add dry ingredients to butter mixture.
- Add lemon juice until dough is no longer dry and crumbly and holds together well. (I squeezed in juice from 1/2 of a lemon)
- Roll out cookie dough between two sheets of wax paper.
- Stack wax paper enclosed dough sheets on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Remove dough from freezer and cut out cookie shapes. (You may want to wait 2-5 minutes for dough to soften a bit before cutting.)
- Place cookie shapes onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and return to freezre for 10 minutes.
- Place tray of frozen cookie shapes directly into preheated oven and bake for 13 minutes or until done.
- Allow cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for 4 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Prep Time | 20 minutes |
Servings |
|
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 2 tablespoons raspberry syrup (coffee flavoring syrups work well)
- 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 1/4 cup raspberry puree (seedless)
- 8 ounces extra creamy whipped topping
Ingredients
|
![]() |
- Beat cream cheese until smooth.
- Add raspberry syrup and puree.
- Gradually mix in powdered sugar.
- Gently fold in whipped topping by hand.
- Store in refrigerator.
Now I want to know what your perfect birthday treat would be! Let me know in the comments.
Rachel what did you make the white rosettes with and how? Thanks, Helen
Hi, Helen! The white pieces are meringue cookies. Basically you make a meringue (egg white, sugar, cream of tartar, and vanilla) and bake low and slow. There are tons of recipes online for these. You can see in the video that I used the same 1M tip from our cupcake class to pipe “dots” that come out shaped more like a ridged Hershey kiss.
Thank you for the info above. When I come for the cookie class next month – I want a couple more flooding bottles, please. Perhaps a #2 and #3 tip. Thanks Helen