Just like chocolate crinkle cookies, these lemon crinkle cookies are soft-baked and chewy, coated in confectionersโ sugar, and practically melt in your mouth. Lemon lovers will appreciate that the zingy flavor comes from real fresh lemon, not extract. I call them โvery lemonโ because there is so much natural lemon flavor!
One reader, Marcia, commented: โGoodbye, favorite bakery. Hello, Sallyโs Very Lemon Crinkle Cookies! These are quite possibly the best cookies I have ever baked. Thank you so very much for sharing your recipe. I think I might try this with orange or lime, too. โ โ โ โ โ โ
I always love a variety of flavors on my assorted holiday cookie platter, and especially like to throw in something unexpected among classics like gingerbread cookies and peanut butter blossoms. In previous years, little lemon coconut drop cookies and apricot thumbprint cookies have been favorites! Today, Iโm introducing a zesty (and festive looking!) sweet-tart lemon cookie to your annual lineup of Christmas cookies.
Hereโs Why Youโll Love These Lemon Crinkle Cookies
- Mouth-watering sweet-tart flavor
- Uses more lemon than other lemon cookie recipes
- No food coloring, no artificial flavoring
- Thick and pillow-soft
- Built-in beauty from the crinkly confectionersโ sugar coatingโno icing or decorating
- Warm from the oven, these melt in your mouth
- Feel free to replace the lemon with another citrus fruit, or try using Meyer lemons
Like Chocolate, But With Lemon
Have you made chocolate crinkle cookies, Nutella crinkle cookies, or even chocolate raspberry crinkles before? Like the chocolate version, these lemon crinkle cookies are also thick and soft-baked, with a melt-in-your-mouth texture and iconic crinkle surfaceโฆ but with the fresh flavor of citrus. Unlike these lemon ginger cookies or lemon coconut shortbread cookies, thereโs no competing flavor today. This is a purely lemon-flavored cookie, and itโs sure to become a new favorite, no matter the time of year.
Why is it called a crinkle? While snowball cookies and peppermint snowball cookies get their sugar-snow dip after baking, crinkle cookies get a roll in confectionersโ sugar before baking. As the cookies bake, the powdery sugar coating cracks apart as the cookies puff up, leaving a crinkled surface. Hence the cute crinkle name.
What You Need & Why (Ingredients)
The recipe is based off of my coconut lime cookies, and youโll be happy to find 1/4 cup (60ml) of lemon juice in the dough. Typical lemon cookies have half that amount. Get ready for flavor! Here are some key points about the ingredients you need:
- Flour: All-purpose flour provides the structure of these cookies.
- Cornstarch: The same magic ingredient for softness we use in chewy chocolate chip cookies; you only need a touch and it helps keep the cookies soft.
- Baking Soda: Makes the cookies puff up in the oven, creating that signature crinkle look.
- Salt: Brings out the flavors and balances the sweet.
- Butter: You need proper room temperature butter for this cookie dough, so it will cream nicely with the sugar. If youโre interested in learning more about this crucial step, here is my tutorial on how to cream butter and sugar.
- Sugar: Just the right amount to balance the tangy lemon.
- Egg: Binds the dough together.
- Lemon Juice: I recommend fresh lemon juice for the best flavor, but you can use bottled lemon juice in a pinch. Here is a wonderful juicer if you donโt have one and need a recommendation. And make sure you have a zester.
- Lemon Zest: Zest the lemon first, before you cut it and juice it. Much easier than the other way around!
- Vanilla Extract: For extra flavor.
- Confectionersโ Sugar: For rolling.
In Photos: How to Make Lemon Crinkle Cookies
After you make the dough, youโll notice itโs quite soft and fluffy. Thatโs totally expected, and the dough needs to chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours. I know itโs a long time to wait, but your puffy cookies will be worth it! Go ahead and make the dough the night before if needed.
After chilling, the dough is much easier to work with. Each cookie is about 1 Tablespoon (20g, 5/8 ounce) of chilled dough:
Roll very generously into confectionersโ sugar:
And arrange on a lined baking sheet, and then bake:
#1 Success Tip: Chill the Dough
Chilling the cookie dough for at least 3 hours in the refrigerator is a non-negotiable. These lemon crinkle cookies contain extra liquid from the lemon juice, so the dough is very soft and sticky. The colder and firmer the cookie dough, the less theyโll over-spread. As you might remember from baking these chewy chocolate chip cookies, chilled cookie dough is not only easier to handle, it bakes thicker cookies.
Can I Use Other Citrus Flavors?
Yes! Try these crinkles with grapefruit, orange, or lime. You may also love these similar coconut lime cookies. Note that recipe has a shorter chill time because the dough is filled with coconut, which helps bulk it up.
Or if you canโt get enough lemon flavor, try my lemon thumbprint cookies and lemon shortbread cookies next. These lemon blueberry cookies are also favorites!
Their snowy exterior makes these perfectly festive in the winter months, but the zippy citrus flavor is refreshing year-round! They have become a favorite on my Summer Cookie Recipesย collection page. I hope you love these too.
This recipe is part of my annual cookie countdown called Sallyโs Cookie Palooza. Itโs the biggest, most delicious event of the year! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sallyโs Cookie Palooza page.
Lemon Crinkle Cookies
- Prep Time: 3 hours, 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 35 minutes
- Yield: 40 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This citrus spin on a crinkle cookie is a lemon loverโs delight. Chilling the cookie dough is important because it helps the flavors to develop, prevents spreading, and makes the otherwise sticky cookie dough easy to handle. Make sure you have a citrus juicer and zester.
Ingredients
- 2ย and 1/2 cups (313g)ย all-purpose flourย (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoonย cornstarch*
- 1 teaspoonย baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoonย salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g)ย unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons (225g) granulated sugar
- 1ย largeย egg, at room temperature
- 1/4 cupย (60ml) fresh or bottledย lemon juice, at room temperature*
- 1 Tablespoonย lemon zest* (packed Tablespoon, itโs a lot of zest!)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For Rolling
- 3 Tablespoons (35g) granulated sugar (optional, see step 6)
- 1 cup (120g) confectionersโ sugar
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed until creamed, about 3 minutes. (Hereโs a helpful tutorial if you need guidance onย how to cream butter and sugar.) Add the egg, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla extract and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Mixture will appear curdled and thatโs ok. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl. Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Dough is thick, creamy, and sticky.
- Cover dough tightly and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours and up to 3 days. Chilling is mandatory for this sticky cookie dough.
- Remove cookie dough from the refrigerator. If the cookie dough chilled longer than 3 hours, let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes. This makes the chilled cookie dough easier to scoop and roll.
- Preheat oven to 350ยฐF (177ยฐC). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Roll in sugar: Scoop and roll balls of dough, about 1 Tablespoon of dough each, into balls. (Each dough ball should weigh about 20g.) Some readers have had trouble with the confectionersโ sugar melting/absorbing into the cookie dough balls, so to prevent that, you can roll the balls in the granulated sugar first. And then roll each ball very generously in the confectionersโ sugar. If you want lots of confectionersโ sugar to show on the baked cookies, roll 2-3x in sugar! Place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets.
- Bake the cookies for 12โ13 minutes or until the edges appear set and the centers still look soft. Tip: If they arenโt really spreading by minute 9, remove them from the oven and lightly bang the baking sheet on the counter 2โ3x. This helps initiate that spread. Return to the oven to continue baking.
- Cool cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. The cookies will slightly deflate as they cool.ย
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: The dough can chill for up to 3 days, so this is a great make-ahead recipe. Baked cookies freeze well up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls (that are not coated in confectionersโ sugar) freeze well up to 3 months. When itโs time to bake the cookies, remove them from the freezer and thaw on the counter for at least 30 minutes. Roll into confectionersโ sugar as instructed and bake.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Citrus Juicer | Citrus Zester |ย Baking Sheets |ย Silicone Baking Matsย orย Parchment Sheets | Cooling Rack
- Granulated Sugar: 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons is an odd amount, but the cookies really benefit from a little extra sugar because of all the tart lemon juice.
- Cornstarch: If you donโt have cornstarch, you can leave it out. It helps maintain a thicker, softer cookie but test batches without it were still intact and delicious.
- Lemons: I usually need 1โ2 lemons to yield 1/4 cup (60ml) juice and 1 Tbsp zest. Feel free to replace the lemon with another citrus fruit, or try using Meyer lemons.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Reader Comments and Reviews
How did yours turn out so yellow? Did you use food coloring?
No, but you could certainly add some if you want an extra yellow cookie!
These are in our top 3 cookies. Family members request them all the time. So yummy!
Can I double this recipe?
Hi Kathy, this makes a fair amount of dough and we worry that if you double the recipe all in 1 bowl, it will overwhelm the mixer and be easy to accidentally over or under-mix. We recommend 2 separate batches.
These came out great! My husband & I loved them. I decided to roll them in a light layer of (more!) lemon zest along with the powdered sugar. My only addition for next time, will be to add a teaspoon of lemon extract. I love lemon & these are super light on the lemon flavor.
They were a bit cakey and not lemony enough and very pale. I would like to know how to rectify this!
Hi Sally, Cakey cookies are usually caused by too much flour in the dough. How did you measure the flour? For your next batch, make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups โ or use a kitchen scale. Also be sure to use a flavorful batch of lemons and you can certainly try increasing the zest a bit for your next batch. Thanks for giving these a try!
Great cookie with amazing flavor! Iโm wondering why a bunch of the cookies wind up so deflated they have a well in the middle after cooking. Thank you!
Hi Kobi! Happy to help troubleshoot. Did you make any changes to the recipe? Did you start with proper room temperature butter? Hereโs our best tips for preventing cookies from spreading for your next batch!
Thank you for your reply. Yes, the butter and eggs were room temperature.
Do you think I should make some adjustments because I am doubling the recipe?