Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Chewy and delicious, no cake mix need! These Lemon Crinkle Cookies will be a hit at your next party!

Cookies are one of the most popular dessert categories on my website. Gotta give the people what they want! While most of the time you will find me stuffing my face with cookies filled with some sort of chocolate, these lemon cookies are surprisingly addicting.

The tartness from all of the lemon flavor against the sweet chewy cookie dough, you will fall head over heels. I love to serve these lemon crinkle cookies on a dessert table with my salted millionaire's shortbread bars.

Let's get to the recipe.

Jump to:

• 🥚Ingredients
• 📖 How to make the cookies
• 🍋 More lemon recipes
• Recipe Card
• Recipe Ratings & Comments

🥚Ingredients

For these cookies, you don't need anything too special! 🙂

• Unsalted Butter. You can use salted butter just omit the salt in the dry ingredients. No matter which butter you use to make sure it is completely softened to room temperature.
• Sugar. Just good ol' granulated sugar also known as caster sugar.
• Lemon. We'll use the lemon zest and the fresh lemon juice from the lemons.
• Eggs. Just one large egg and one large egg yolk.
• Vanilla Extract. Even though these are lemon cookies I love vanilla so I find just a smidge gives the best base flavor to these cookies.
• Lemon Extract. I really wanted the lemon flavor to punch through, and the more real lemon juice I added the looser the dough would be, not ideal for a cookie recipe. So adding some extract was the perfect fix.
• Flour. Just plain old all-purpose flour or plain flour is needed.
• Salt. Don't forget it, salt helps in all baking!
• Cornstarch. Also known as cornflour, this helps tenderize the dough and create soft cookie.
• Baking Powder and Baking Soda. These are both chemical leavening agents, meaning they give the cookies their lift. Often in chocolate chip cookies you only see baking soda added because baking soda reacts to an acid (brown sugar) and raises the cookies. But in this recipe even though there is lemon there is not enough acid to completely raise the cookies properly so adding baking powder which is baking soda with acid gives us the perfect lift.
• Powdered Sugar. Also known as confectioners sugar this is what we will roll the cookies in and get that iconic crinkle cookie look.

You could definitely add chocolate chips if you want but the cookies do not need them! The cookie dough will also be quite pale and yellow looking itself but if you wanted you could add a drop or two of yellow food coloring, I don't find it necessary.

Baking is a science and to really achieve the best results I highly recommend investing in a kitchen scale. This OXO Kitchen Scale is the one I use and is also the number one recommended kitchen scale by Cook's Illustrated. Think about it -what one person scoops into a "cup" is completely different as to what someone else scoops!

📖 How to make the cookies

Start by creaming the butter and sugar together. We add the lemon zest here so that the oil from the lemon zest binds to all of the sugar granules.

I always use my Microplane zester to zest my lemon, which makes it so much easier!!

You can do this in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or a large bowl with a handheld electric whisk.

Beat the ingredients for 2-3 minutes.

Make sure to scrape down the bowl so all the ingredients are evenly combined.

Add the whole egg and mix to combine, don't forget to again scrape the bowl. Next, add the egg yolk and lemon and vanilla extracts. Mix until fully combined, and you betcha you better scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure its all distributed evenly.  

Whisk together the flour, salt, cornstarch, baking powder, and baking soda.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mix until just combined. The cookie dough will be thick. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the dough for at least 2 hours. Chilling the dough helps the dough marinate and the flavors bind, as well as the colder cookie dough will spread less when baking.

When you're ready to bake preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 180 degrees celsius and line a baking sheet with a Silpat liner or parchment paper.

In a small but deep bowl add the powdered sugar.

Use a medium cookie scoop to scoop 1.5 tablespoons of cookie dough then roll the ball together and roll in powdered sugar.

Place the cookies on a baking tray two-three inches apart and bake for 9-11 minutes or until the cookies are just set.

Place the cookie sheet on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Store cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

🍋 More lemon recipes

You should definitely try my easy homemade lemon curd recipe next. Then use it in this Lemon Curd Loaf Cake or Lemon Curd Cheesecake.

These lemon cream crumb bars are absolutely delicious.

And my lemon poppy seed muffin recipe is the perfect bright muffin to enjoy!

★ Please let me know if you make this recipe by leaving a star rating and comment below!

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This post was originally published May 12, 2012 on my original, short-lived blog, Lifestyles of a Chocoholic!