Categories: Food

Simple, Zesty Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Merry Christmas Eve! I’m so excited to share this recipe with y’all! I love lemon/citrus sweets. As much as I love chocolate, citrus desserts are just so light and refreshing! Which makes it easier to eat even more of them 😉

Technically I am supposed to be working today, but I’m on call right now (BLESS). Beside the point– today, we are supposed to have a cookie exchange at work today. I made these for the exchange, but since I’m on call, I might just have to eat them all myself 🙂

These cookies are super easy to make and use pretty straightforward ingredients. I modified these recipe from a few others that I found. A lot of them called for lemon extract, but since they were all sold out of lemon extract at the store yesterday, I changed around the recipe.

I added more lemon juice than most recipes and I added lemon zest to add a more natural and fresh lemon taste.

The dough is super sticky when you start rolling out the dough, but if you cover your hands in a bit of the powdered sugar, it makes it easier to handle. Coating the dough well in powdered sugar gives the cookies a crinkled look once you bake them.

If you enjoy this recipe, you may enjoy my post about the viral TikTok cinnamon roll hack!

BTW, just a note that adding food coloring is SO optional in this! It will give it that yellow color that people associate with lemony desserts, otherwise the cookies will be a pale color and the crinkle effect won’t be prominent. If you are averse to food coloring, these natural, plant-based food coloring is great!

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Light, and refreshingly fruity cookies with a cake texture

Servings 4 dozen cookies

Author Sara Ann

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs room temperature
juice of 2 lemons
zest of 2 lemons
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 drops yellow food coloring (optional)
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt
In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Then add in egg, lemon juice, lemon extract, vanilla extract, and yellow food coloring.
Slowly add in dry ingredients until well combined
Pour powdered sugar into a plate
Form 1 inch balls from dough (dough will be sticky!) and coat well in powdered sugar
Place balls onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Balls should be about 2 inches apart.
Bake cookies for 10 minutes
Cool slightly before transferring to cooling rack