Lemon tea biscuits are made with cake flour, lemon zest and fresh lemon juice for a sweet teacake that can be served for an afternoon tea party or as part of a brunch menu.
Prep Time1 hourhr
Cook Time8 minutesmins
Total Time1 hourhr8 minutesmins
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: cookie, snack food
Servings: 24
Author: Laura Warnke
Ingredients
Biscuit Ingredients
2cupscake flour
2teaspoonsbaking powder
1/2teaspoonsalt
4Tablespoonsbutter or shortening
1-1/2teaspoonsfinely grated lemon rindlemon zest
2/3cupmilk
Sugar Filling Ingredients
4Tablespoonsgranulated sugar
1-1/2teaspoonsfinely grated lemon rindlemon zest
1/4teaspoonlemon juice
For Brushing the Biscuits
1/8cupmelted butter
Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again.
Cut in butter with a pastry cutter until well blended; add grated lemon rind and blend in to flour mixture.
Add milk all at once and stir carefully until all flour is dampened.
Stir vigorously until mixture forms a soft dough and follows spoon around bowl. Turn out immediately on a slightly floured board (with cake flour) and knead 30 seconds. This will be a very soft dough. When kneading and rolling out the dough be sure to have enough extra cake flour to keep the dough from sticking. Using a rolling pin, roll out to 1/4 inch thick with a rolling pin and cut with 1-1/2 inch floured biscuit cutter. Cut 48 biscuits. You can re-roll the remaining dough 2-3 times without worry of it becoming tough.
In a separate small bowl for the filling combine sugar, lemon rind, and enough lemon juice to make a crumbly mixture- about 1/4 teaspoon or so.
Place half of the biscuits in a greased 24 count mini-muffin pan. Using a pastry brush, brush each biscuit half with melted butter and spoon about a teaspoon of the sugar mixture over the melted butter on each biscuit. Top with each of the remaining biscuits, pressing lightly together.
Bake in preheated 450 degree F. hot oven 8-10 minutes, or until done.
Notes
Frosting (Optional) These lemon tea biscuits turn out delicious on their own but you may want to dress them up a bit with some frosting. I tried ready-made cream cheese frosting and it was very good. I also tried taking a few spoons of the ready made cream cheese frosting in a small bowl and added a 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice and also 2 drops of yellow food coloring to frost these biscuits. That turned out equally good.