Lemon poppy seed cookies will surprise you

These soft crisp lemon poppy seed cookies full of bright lemon flavor and the mysterious floral crunch of poppy seeds will genuinely surprise you with their goodness.

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There’s a couple cookies that if I didn’t make them for Christmas, there would be open revolt in my house. These poppy seed cookies are one of them; the other is checkerboard cookies. These two are always at the top of everyone’s list year after year after year.

It makes sense; as someone with Czech heritage, I wish more Americans knew how amazing poppy seeds really are. They have a compelling hard to nail down flavor, but the crunch? My goodness the crunch is so special. They are not crunchy like a nut or a potato chip; instead they have a unique texture that is for me, where it’s all at.

That these cookies take just a couple of minutes to make is positively wonderful in the Christmas rush.

Bust out your coffee grinder and let’s whiz up some poppy seeds.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

How these cookies will dance their way into your heart.

1. Simple beauty: Their bold black and white look is an incredible contrast to more elaborate decorated cookies or ones with more color like my strawberry matcha shortbread. I’m always trying to balance flavors and textures in my Christmas cookies. If these poppy seed cookies make it into your list, I promise you won’t have anything else like them.
2. Texture for days: This is a if you know you know situation. Poppy seed filling makes it into kolache and poppy seed rolls. Poppy seed MUST be one of the flavors in our Christmas morning round of kolache. The taste is unforgettable and these lemon poppy seed cookies are a quick way to appreciate the goodness of poppy seeds.
3. Not tooth-aching sweet: These are not the sweetest cookie, which frankly is nice sometimes. These are a perfect after dinner or tea time cookie just because of this.
4. Quick!: With no decoration needed, you can mix up this dough, scoop and bake all within 30 minutes.

Why grind poppy seeds?

It’s not terribly common to find poppy seeds in the US, but when you do, they are usually whole or in spice blends like Everything Bagel. What people don’t realize is that you get the most flavor out of poppy seeds when you grind them. In Europe you can find ground poppy seeds. As convenient as that may be, like other spices, poppy seeds start to lose their essential oils (i.e. flavor) once ground very quickly.

My German friend’s mom has a special standalone grinder for just poppy seeds. Poppy seed grinders are fairly common thing in Europe. I’ve seen people use meat grinders for them, but for me, I simply use my coffee grinder that I use for grinding just spices. It makes quick, clean work of the job.

Helpful equipment for making poppy seed cookies

1. Coffee grinder: for grinding up the poppy seeds. You can leave them whole. I’ve made versions of this cookie for years without grinding them and they still taste delicious (though not as flavorful).
2. Cookie scoop: I like a 3/4 oz scoop for these cookies. You can use a spoon too.
3. Parchment: always for lining pans.
4. Sheet pans

Tips for making the best poppy seed cookies

1. Flatten!: The dough for these cookies is quite thick. Don’t be alarmed at this. The butter will melt, and the cookies will bake up into soft little cakes with a crisp butter edge to them. Still, when you scoop the cookies, flatten them with the palm of your hand for the best baking.
2. Icing?: We do not ice these cookies in our house, but you might think differently. Feel free to glaze them with a little bit of powdered sugar mixed with lemon juice.
3. Leave a few whole poppy seeds: The one down side to grinding the poppy seeds is not seeing their gorgeous blue black color flecking the dough as clearly. To fix this, save a few whole poppy seeds and sprinkle them on top your cookies.
4. Choose your extract: I’m suggesting using almond extract in these cookies, but they are equally good with vanilla.

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