Whip up a batch of these lemon and rhubarb cookies, they make the perfect thank you gift!
When we moved from the inner suburbs of a big city to ten acres in the country one of the big changes was our neighbors.
We no longer live so close to our neighbors that we can hear them fart in the shower (true story!). We now have horses for neighbors on one side, and the nosiest neighbors we have are the cows in the paddock out the back who dance and sing to the full moon (also a true story).
We do have some people neighbors though, and they are just lovely.
They fed me sausage sangers when I was in early labour with my middle child, and now they take him for rides on their little quad bike. They are always dropping in with little gifts for our kids, despite the fact that they have grand kids of their own to shower with gifts.
They gave our kids chocolate bunnies for Easter and they gave us adults a bottle of their amazing homegrown lemon olive oil, yum! So on the weekend we decided it was time we dropped in with a little gift for them… Lemon and Rhubarb Cookies.
These cookies are soft and buttery and oh so lemony, and while they are fancy enough to give as a gift, the kids love them too, plus they are easy to make!
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Chop the rhubarb into small pieces and place into a small bowl. Add the extra 1/2 table spoon of sugar, the lemon zest (use more or less depending on how lemony you like your cookies), and lemon juice to the chopped rhubarb, mix well and allow to sit for a little while. Cream butter and sugars, then add the egg and mix well. Fold in flour and corn flour and then stir through rhubarb mixture. Place table spoons (or bigger!) of dough on well greased trays and cook for 10-15 minutes. These cookies will not brown, they stay very blonde. When you see them starting to go slightly brown around the edges, take them out, or they will be crumbly not soft and chewy.Lemon and Rhubarb Cookies
Ingredients
Instructions
Please note: this recipe uses Australian measurements and temperatures, if you need to convert measurements or temperatures you can find our printable cooking conversion chart here.
Do you need a thank you card to go with the cookies?
I often print out the word ‘thank you’ for my kids to colour in when we need a quick thank you card, which is exactly what I did on the weekend to go with the cookies, and then I turned it into a free printable, in case you need a quick thank you card too.
You can download the free printable colour in thank you card here.
Just download the pdf file, print it out, cut where indicated, and get the kids to colour it in for a gorgeous, personalised, kid-made, thank you!
This printable is an A4 sized pdf file, you will need a pdf reader such as adobe acrobat to open it. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.
Please remember that the printables at picklebums.com are for personal use only, you may not sell, share, or link directly to these files.
What is your favourite ‘thank you cookie’?
Looking for more ‘thank you’ cookies? These cookie recipes would also make great thank you gifts…
Carla says
Oh wow. I love rhubarb and it has never occurred to me to put it in a biscuit. Will definitely try this one. Thank you
Carla x
Elisha says
I made these but the recipe said to turn the oven at 180 degrees, was this right? Mine were runny and not browning, I turned it up to 300 degrees and they seemed to work out better. I noticed someone else called this a bisquit instead of a cookie, is it possible you are in another part of the world? I’m in Nebraska.
katepickle says
Yes, this recipe is written with Australian measurements so you will need to convert the oven temp from Celcius to Farenheit.
This conversion chart might be helpful http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking_gasmark.htm
Fiona says
that looks awesome. Just bought a tonne of lemons at the farmers market and have rhubarb in the backyard, I should totally try these!
Shame people can’t realise that Celcius is the way to go for cooking ;)
Mike says
This seems to be a British recipe so you’ll need to transpose C>F. The oven temp should be about 350. I wanted to try these but wasn’t sure about the “corn flour” translation. Some say that it would translate to “corn starch”. In cookies? Really? Is this true?
katepickle says
yes corn flour is the same as corn starch, it will make your cookies slightly chewier rather than crumbly.
Jill says
Oh! I wouldn’t have thought that! Thanks for the reply!
Jessica says
Im very excited to try this one, my dad grew up in Illinois so for his bday and fathers day every year i make pies with rhubarb. I love cookies can’t wait. thanks for the great recipe!!!!
Jill says
“corn flour”—–is that what I call cornmeal????
katepickle says
Corn flour is the same thing as corn starch. Hope that helps
Michelle says
Does this recipe use salted butter or unsalted butter?
I would usually use unsalted in baking, but I don’t see salt anywhere else in the recipe. They look delicious!
katepickle says
If you like a touch of salt in your recipe feel free to use salted, or add some. I don’t add extra salt to many recipes, but I do use salted butter.
artgnome says
I just made these this afternoon. Easily the best new recipe I’ve tried this year
Em says
I made four batches of these cookies in two days. My family loved them! We have a huge rhubarb patch and every year a bunch goes to waste because you can only eat so much crisp and pie. These cookies are great way to change up rhubarb. Thanks so much for the recipe!
ryanandshaina says
For people in US – USE CORN STARCH, NOT CORN FLOUR.
In the UK these two things are the same thing but in the US they are different. Trust me we made this recipe using corn flour and not corn starch and these cookies came out extremely flat and falling apart because we did not have the starch thickener added. We will be trying this recipe again as the cookies tasted great but were just flat.
ryanandshaina says
OK we followed this recipe to a T and they came out even runnier than last time, they literally pooled out into the whole pan. Now I have t try to salvage them as “bars”.
katepickle says
I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you, hope you were able to salvage something.
Brenda says
Did you use self raising flour or plain flour? if you used plain flour then your cookies had no baking powder in it
Flavian says
Made them today was really yummy. Thanks for the recipe, it works?
Donna says
I made these today I can’t say how they tasted, but mom loves them. She is the taste tester!
Conversion for temperature is 365. Odd number, but it worked out nicely for 13 minutes. Thank you
Leslie Fischer says
These turned out amazing. I added a little coconut to the last batch and loved it. Thank you!!!
Patty says
These cookies were great right out of the oven but the longer they sat they turned mushy. Probably won’t make them again
Did all the conversions correctly, used corn starch. Not sure what the problem would be …
katepickle says
I’m sorry they didn’t work out for you. I am not a master baker so I have no idea why they would get mush as they cooled, perhaps something to do with the rhubarb?
Becca Thompson says
It might be altitude. If she’s in the USA, we live everywhere from sea level to over 10,000 feet ABOVE sea level. Altitude has a HUGE effect on baking, anything greater than 3,500 feet above sea level can require adjustments. Also, humidity can come into play.
Chriss Szabo says
Can you use frozen rhubarb? How would you do it – cook it, drain it, blend it?
katepickle says
I am not familiar with frozen rhubarb. Does it come already cooked then frozen?
You need to use un cooked rhubarb cut into small pieces for this recipe, it needs to be firm to retain it’s texture and shape when you cook the cookies. If the frozen rhubarb defrosts into firm chunks of raw rhubarb you could give it a try.
Chris says
Hi Kate ~ You just dice your fresh rhubarb, measure (1 cup, 2 cups, etc), bag and freeze. When you want rhubarb and it’s not in season, pull out the amount you need and add it to your recipe frozen. Easy peasy and no wasted rhubarb!
Jan Goodman says
I tried this recipe today but was disappointed. I’m now wondering if I was supposed to drain the rhubarb, sugar and lemon before it was added to the dough. The dough was very sticky. I didn’t add more flour because I didn’t want it to have that too-much-flour taste. The biscuits ran quite a lot on the tray. The biscuits tasted good but the parts surrounded the rhubarb seem very wet.
Any suggestions?
katepickle says
I’m sorry it didn’t turn out as planned, recipes can be so fickle like that!
I’d try simply adding less lemon juice, perhaps your lemons are bigger and juicier than ours. Flour can also vary a lot so you could try adding a tiny bit more flour if you felt it was needed.
Carolyne says
I’m soo glad I tried this recipe, will keep close at hand, they are easy and delicious. Thanks for sharring.