Zesty with a melt-in-your-mouth texture, these soft lemon cookies are a perfect light dessert to enjoy during the summer season. If you love lemon flavor, these cookies are for you!
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Ingredients you will need
Butter - Use unsalted butter at room temperature. Cold butter won't beat to a fluffy texture together with sugar.
Sugar - I prefer to use white sugar because brown sugar can overpower the lemon flavor.
Salt and lemon extract - Make sure that you like the flavor of the lemon extract you use. Sometimes it can have a chemical flavor. As for the salt, don't skip it, as it makes our incredible lemon cookies even better by balancing the flavors.
Lemon - I use fresh lemon juice, but a bottled one will work as well. Also, you'll need lemon zest to make this lemon cookies recipe.
Eggs - The egg should be at room temperature. If you forgot to take it out from the fridge in advance, place it in a bowl with very warm water for 3 minutes.
Flour - Sift the all-purpose flour before combining it with the wet ingredients.
Baking soda - Baking powder won't work in this lemon cookie recipe because of all the acidity from the lemon. So, we need baking soda to improve the texture. Don't forget to sift the baking soda together with the flour and mix it well to spread.
Cooking tips
Measure all the ingredients using a digital kitchen scale, not cups. This is a very easy lemon cookies recipe t if you measure your ingredient properly. Baking is a science and you should treat it as such if you want to get an amazing result every single time.
Don't add extra lemon juice. It can be tempting to add 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice, but don't do it! You'll make the dough way too soft - to the point that your cookies won't set after baking.
Let the cookies cool down on the baking sheet for 10 minutes. The cookies will continue baking out of the oven if you don't remove them from the baking sheet too early.
Step by step directions
1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl, combine the flour with baking soda and set it aside.
3. Place the butter, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat for 2-3 minutes on medium-high, scraping the sides and the bottom a couple of times in between, until well combined, fluffy, and pale in color.
4. Add the egg and beat again until fully incorporated. Then, add the lemon juice, zest, and extract and beat just until incorporated.
5. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until no dry ingredients are left.
6. Using a 3 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop 14 cookie dough balls onto the baking sheet, leaving at least 2" or 5cm distance in between. Alternatively, make 20 cookies using a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop. If you have to work in batches, leave the rest of the dough in the fridge while the first batch is baking.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the cookies have spread, puffed up, formed very small cracks, and are slightly golden around the edges. Don’t let them brown!
8. Remove from the oven and let cool down on a baking sheet for 10 minutes. Then, transfer onto a cooling rack to cool down completely and bake the second batch, if you have one.
Decoration and flavor variations
Yellow food coloring - 1-2 drops of yellow gel food coloring will make your lemon zest cookies brighter. However, not everyone likes to use artificial colors in baked goods. For those people, I can suggest using ¼ teaspoon of turmeric. There will be no weird flavor in your cookies, I promise!
Powdered sugar - To make lemon crinkle cookies, you can roll the cookie dough balls with your hands and then roll each in some powdered sugar before baking. The cookies will spread and the powdered sugar will make the cracks more pronounced.
White chocolate - Melt some white chocolate and drizzle it on top of the cooled-down cookies.
Sugar glaze - Make some glaze with lemon juice and powdered sugar and drizzle it on top of our homemade lemon cookies.
FAQ
Store completely cooled cookies at room temperature for up to 5 days. If it’s too hot at home, store them in an airtight container lined with a paper towel in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Wrap each cookie in plastic wrap and then in a piece of foil and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw in the fridge before serving.
Wrap the dough in the plastic wrap and then in the piece of foil and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight. If hard to scoop out, let sit at room temperature until soft enough to scoop the cookie dough balls.
More cookie recipes
Recipe card
Lemon cookies
Equipment
- Digital kitchen scale
- Stand mixer or hand mixer and mixing bowl
- Cookie scoop 3 tablespoon cookie scoop
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
- 100 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 150 g white granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Zest of one lemon
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon lemon extract
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 220 g all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C (350F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a bowl, combine the flour with baking soda and set aside.
- Place the butter, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or use a bowl and a hand mixer). Beat for 2-3 minutes on medium-high, scraping the sides and the bottom a couple of times in between, until well combined, fluffy, and pale in color.
- Add the egg and beat again until fully incorporated. Then, add the lemon juice, zest, and extract and beat just until incorporated.
- Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until no dry ingredients are left.
- Using a 3 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop 14 cookie dough balls onto the baking sheet, leaving at least 2" or 5cm distance in between. Alternatively, make 20 cookies using a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop. If you have to work in batches, leave the rest of the dough in the fridge while the first batch is baking.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the cookies have spread, puffed up, formed very small cracks, and are slightly golden around the edges. Don’t let them brown!
- Remove from the oven and let cool down on a baking sheet for 10 minutes. Then, transfer onto a cooling rack to cool down completely and bake the second batch, if you have one.
Leyla says
Super!!💐💐💐
Anna says
Thank you!
Julie Alderton says
made twice now absolutely delish, took some to work for the staff which went down a yummy treat
Anna says
Thank you for your comment, Julie! I'm so glad you like my recipe!