Lemon Cookies

These lemon cookies are soft and chewy cookies, with the perfect tangy and sweet lemon flavor in every single bite!

These lemon crinkle cookies are the perfect bites of sunshine. They’re refreshing, lemony, and so delicious. They’re a little tart, but still sweet and so perfect for lemon lovers. I love lemony desserts and these are one of my new favorites.

I ate about a dozen of the cookies in 2 days, and probably just as much of the cookie dough. 

So, my brother in law is getting married today, and for their reception they wanted to have ice cream sandwiches. They asked me, to help make some of the cookies for the ice cream sandwiches. And I was assigned to make lemon cookies, thus, this amazing lemon cookie recipe was born. 

I made about 3 batches of cookies trying to get the recipe just right, and then once it was good I made another 3 batches of cookies to have enough cookies to make 50 ice cream sandwiches. I can’t wait to dig my teeth into one of those babies. 

These lemon cookies have triple the lemon in the cookies, to make them nice and lemony. The lemon cookie dough has lemon extract, fresh lemon juice, and fresh lemon zest. But if you like an even stronger lemon flavor then you can also add more lemon zest to the recipe. Don’t add more lemon juice or lemon extract to the dough as they will change the consistency of the cookies. 

How to make Lemon Cookies?

These cookies start out like a rolled sugar cookie, with butter and sugar that are creamed together till nice and light and creamy. Then you’ll add in the eggs, the vanilla extract, the lemon extract, the lemon juice, and the lemon zest. You can also add some yellow food coloring if you want the cookies a brighter yellow. I added about 5 drops of yellow food coloring to make them a nice light yellow color. Make sure to scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl as you are mixing the cookie dough.  

After all the wet ingredients are mixed, you’ll add in your dry ingredients. You’ll need flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.Stir them all together till you have a nice and soft dough. If your dough is too soft you can place it in the fridge for about 30 minutes to chill.

Place powdered sugar on a small plate or bowl. Scoop the cookie dough into 1 1/2 tablespoon sized balls. Roll into nice and smooth balls and place them in the powdered sugar. Roll the cookie dough all around to cover them completely in powdered sugar.

Place the cookie dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a liner and repeat till the baking tray is lined with 12 cookies. Bake the cookies till the tops look barely done, and no longer shiny. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes then remove them to a cooling rack to cool completely, or enjoy some warm.

If you have any extra lemon cookies, they can be stored in an ziplock bag, or plastic wrap covered plate for about 3 days.

How to freeze lemon cookies?

Since these cookies were made a few days ahead of time for my Brother in Law’s wedding, they got stuck in the freezer. We only froze ours for a few days, but you can freeze them for up to 2 months.  You’ll want to separate the cookies with parchment paper if you’re freezing multiple layers, and freeze them in an airtight bag or container.

You can also freeze the cookie dough. Prepare the dough up through rolling the cookie dough in powdered sugar, but instead of baking the cookies, place the dough balls all on a cookie sheet and freeze for about 1 hour until they’re nice and hard. Then you can seal them in a freezer safe bag, vacuum sealed bag, or other air tight container to store for about 3 months. 

When you’re ready to bake the frozen cookie dough balls place them on a baking sheet and allow them to sit at room temperature while you preheat the oven. Then bake them up as usual. The cookies may need 1 to 2 minutes extra to bake when frozen.

These lemon cookies are coated in powdered sugar, kind of like my Chocolate Crinkle Cookie Recipe. Some of the powdered sugar soaks into the cookies to make them a little sweeter, but some of it still stays on top of the cookies and it makes them taste a little bit like lemon bars, especially when they’re fresh out of the oven. Yum!

We still have cold weather ahead for a couple more weeks, but these lemon cookies are the perfect bites of sunshine to help me think of summer time. 

Looking for more lemon recipes?

• Lemon Curd Cheesecake Bars
• Lemon Meringue Pie
• Lemon Icebox Cake
• Lemon Poke Cake

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