The Best Strawberry Sugar Cookie Bars
If you love sugar cookies, but want an easier method, you have got to try these sugar cookies bars! They are so much simpler to make.
Servings: 16
Ingredients
- ½ cup softened butter
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon almond extract I know it might seem like a lot, but I lot the way it matches taste with the lemon and strawberrries.
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup whole wheat pastry flour
- dash salt that is actually ⅛ teaspoon if you want to measure
Strawberry Icing
- ½ cup softened butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- ⅓ cup ground freeze-dried strawberries I do this in my food processor or your can roll them out.
- Fresh lemon juice I use this as a variable to get the icing to the consistency I am looking for. I used about 2 tablespoons for mine.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line a 9x9 baking pan with parchment and set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, whole wheat pastry flour, and salt. Set aside. Cream the butter and granulated sugar for the cookie bars together. This should only take a minute. Add in your egg, vanilla, almond extract, and lemon zest. Mix to combine. Add in your flour mixture and again, mix to combine.
- Put it into your parchment-lined pan and press to even out.
- Place in the oven and bake for about 18 minutes. These should not be baked until they are browned, you will overbake them. Mine was baked to VERY, VERY lightly browned just around the edges.
- Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for 5 minutes. Then, using the parchment paper, remove it from the pan and set it on a cooling rack. Cool them for another 25-30 minutes.
- While they are cooling, mix your icing. I add all the ingredients with about 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice. Mix well and add more lemon juice to get the consistency you are looking for. Mine was a little stiff, but you can always make it a little thinner if you want.
- These are delicious served right away, but they also hold really well in the refrigerator for up to 3 days! Just make sure they are wrapped well or stored in an airtight container.
Notes
- Don't overmix. it is very important that other than when you are creaming your butter and sugar, you do not overmix these bars. Even creaming the butter and sugar you don't want to mix it too much, these cookies are dense, not light, and fluffy. After you add in the other ingredients, you only want to mix just to combine. While we want the bar dense, we don't want it tough!
- When you use whole wheat flour, I highly recommend whole wheat pastry flour. You can use other whole wheat flours, but the texture might change a little bit as well as the flavor.
- I love to bake my cookie bars in a metal pan. It offers a more even heating surface than glass, and it bakes a lot faster.
- These cookies have a short baking time. Make sure not to overbake them, or else they will be dry and crumbly. They should be almost underbaked when you bake them.