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These lemon cookies are so light and fresh with nothing artificial, just flavored with pure vanilla extract and lemon juice and zest fresh from the lemon! Finally, they are rolled in fresh lemon zest sugar and baked to perfection! They freeze beautifully in either cookie, or dough form, so you can always have a few on hand for after school snacks, or just a lemony sweet treat!
Ingredients
- Lemons! This recipe calls for both lemon zest and lemon juice in the cookie dough and more zest in the rolling sugar for lots of bright and light, lemony flavor.
- All Purpose Flour
- Baking Powder
- Baking Soda
- Salt
- Egg
- Butter- either salted or unsalted is fine.
- Granulated Sugar
- Vanilla
Tips
These lemon cookies are super easy to make, but there a few steps that are especially important to follow for ultimate success!
Room Temp Butter
- Let the butter sit out of the fridge until it is room temperature. The ideal temperature is 60°F. If you have a little cooking thermometer, use it to test the butter temperature. You don’t want it too warm or too cold. 60°F is the sweet spot.
Cream, Cream, Cream!
- Make sure you cream the butter and sugar on medium high speed for a full 4 minutes with either a hand or stand mixer. Then when you add the egg, vanilla, and lemon juice, continue to cream for an additional minute. This melts the sugar into and aerates the dough. It is key for light, melt in your mouth cookies! So definitely don’t skip this step.
Make Sure your Ingredients are fresh
- Make sure your baking soda and baking powder are fresh. These two ingredients contribute to the light, airiness of the cookie. It is important they are fresh so they can do their job. You can’t always check the expiration date, so to test the freshness, this is what you can do:
- Baking Soda- Add about a teaspoon of baking soda to 1/2 cup of white vinegar. It should immediately fizz and bubble up. If it doesn’t, it is time to replace it.
- Baking Powder- Pour about 1/2 cup hot water over a 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. It should bubble up. If it does, it is still fresh, if not, time to buy new baking powder.
- If you would like more in depth information on the science behind baking soda and powder, check out this video where Alton Brown breaks it down!
Don’t Over mix the Wet and Dry ingredients
- Don’t over mix the dry and wet ingredients together. Mix just until there’s no more powdery pockets. Over mixing will trigger gluten development which will cause tough, flat cookies.
Do Not Over cook
- Don’t over cook these cookies. When the timer goes off, they are going to seem like they are undercooked, but they aren’t! Don’t be tempted to keep cooking them. Once they are cracked, they are done, even if they still seem too doughy. Trust me on this. 🙂
How to Make Lemon Cookies
Start by preheating the oven so that it is 350°F by the time you are ready to bake the cookies.
Next, use a whisk to combine the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder into a bowl. Then set it aside.
Zesting and Juicing the Lemons
Make sure you wash your lemons! Zesting basically means scraping of the yellow skin of the lemon. This is the very outer layer and can get very dirty! So make sure you wash your lemons well before you zest.
Zest 3 lemons. I use a microplane that you can see here on Amazon. Make sure when you zest, that you are only getting the yellow part, and not the white part. The yellow part holds all of the delicious lemon oils, whereas the white part is bitter and holds none of the good bright lemon flavor.
Add the zest from 1 lemon to 1/2 cup of granulated sugar. Use your fingers to massage the zest into the sugar so that all of the oils release into the sugar. Set this aside until the dough is ready.
We won’t be using the juice from all 3 of the lemons in this recipe, but since they are zested, you may as well juice them all as well! The extra juice can be stored in a jar in the fridge for up to a week.
Creaming the Butter, Sugar and Lemon Zest
Add the butter, sugar and lemon zest into a large bowl and use a stand or hand mixer to cream it on medium high speed. Set your timer for 4 minutes, and continue to cream, (scraping the sides down periodically) for the full 4 minutes.
After 4 minutes, add in the egg, vanilla, lemon juice and continue creaming for one more minute.
Adding in the Dry Ingredients
Add the Flour mixture to the creamed ingredients and mix on low speed just until full incorporated. Be careful not to over mix, just mix until there are no pockets of flour.
Creating the Sugared Cookie Balls
Now, take about 2 Tablespoons of dough and roll it in your hands to form a ball, and then roll it in the lemon sugar.
Place the cookie dough balls on a parchment lined baking sheet. You should be able to easily fit 3 rows of 4 cookies.
Bake them for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, peek at the cookies. If they are cracked, they are done! It will be tempting to let them keep baking because they will seem undercooked, but they are not! If you are really concerned, bake them for 1 more minute. But no more than that! Trust me, they will seem under done, but I promise they will be perfect!
Let them cool on the baking sheet before transferring them to a pretty cake stand like this one on Amazon to enjoy!
How to Freeze Cookie Dough
This recipe makes about 36 cookies, so I usually bake a dozen, and then freeze 2 dozen for later. It is so nice to be able to just pull cookies out of the freezer, bake them and have fresh cookies for any occasion!
To freeze them, start by rolling the extra dough into lemon cookie balls and coating them in the lemon sugar. Then place the cookie balls in a gallon size zip lock. Lay then in a single layer.
Try to get as much air as possible out of the bag and then seal it. Lay it in the freezer so that the cookie balls are in a single layer. The sugar coating and laying them flat will help keep them from sticking together, and once they are frozen, you don’t have to worry about them laying flat. These will last in the freezer for several months.
How to Bake Frozen Cookie Dough
When you are ready to bake the frozen cookie dough simply pull the cookie dough balls out of the freezer and place however many you’d like on a parchment lined baking sheet.
Let them sit out and soften slightly while the oven preheats. Once the oven is preheated, bake them as directed!
They might be a slight bit puffier than they are when you bake thawed dough. If you would like to help them flatten a bit, you can use a glass, or plate, or something to gently flatten the cookie balls a little bit before baking. This will help them spread in the oven since they will still be very cold. But honestly, I don’t think this is necessary. They may look puffy when you pull them out of the oven, but as they cool, they will settle into the perfect, crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, lemon cookies!
No matter what they will be light and crisp outside, and chewy and soft inside! Enjoy!
More Fresh and Delicious Recipes
- Dutch Baby with Cranberry Orange Compote– Use any left over lemon sugar on this delicious breakfast treat!
- Strawberry Salad with Creamy Lemon Dressing– Perfect for a spring or summer lunch, especially with these lemon cookies for dessert!
- Grilled Artichokes with Sriracha Aioli– A delicious addition to any meal!
- Spicy Tuna Roll Bowl– SO fresh and delicious!
- Lavender Simple Syrup– Add a little of this to sparkling water, vodka soda, or tea for a lightly sweet floral addition that would be so good with these cookies!
- Blistered Shishito Peppers– Easy and delicious with a tangy lemon, tahini dip.
- Air Fryer Brussel Sprouts with Gochujang Glaze and Yuzu Aioli– Spicy, sweet and tangy- all the flavors!
- Salted Spiced Rum Ginger Cookies– Looking for another delicious cookie recipe? Here you go! 🙂
I hope you enjoyed this recipe for Sugared Lemon Cookies. I would love to hear what you think in the comments at the very bottom of the page! Thank you and thank you for visiting Mollie in Montana~*!
Sugared Lemon Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup room temperature (60℉ is perfect if you have a cooking thermometer) butter
- 1 ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 Tbsp Lemon Zest (zest of 2 lemons)
- 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice (Juice of 1 lemon)
- 2 ¾ cup All purpose flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
Lemon Sugar for Rolli
- ½ cup granulated sugar for rolling cookies
- zest of one lemon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉
- Combine flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda, in a bowl and sift or whisk it all to combine.
- In a separate bowl, use a hand mixer or stand mixer to cream butter, sugar and lemon zest together on medium high for 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl once.
- Add the egg, vanilla and lemon juice and continue to beat for an additional minute, scraping down the sides once.
- Add the flour mixture into the creamed mixture. Mix slowly and only until everything is combined and there are no floury streaks or pockets. Just make sure you don't over mix- that will make your cookies tough.
- Roll about 2 tablespoons of dough into a ball and into the lemon sugar to coat and place on parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes in preheated oven- You will know they are done when the tops start to crack. They shouldn't brown at all and they will seem a little under done, but they are good! Resist the urge to bake them more than 11 minutes.
- Remove them from the oven and let them cool completely on the baking sheet.
- Enjoy!!
Notes
Notes:
- Make Sure you cream the sugar, butter and zest for the full 4 minutes! It really does make a difference in the texture and consistency of the cookie.
- Make sure your butter is room temperature- that is, not too hard, and not too soft! To get (uncharacteristically!) technical- 60°F is the ideal temp for creaming butter. 🙂
- Make sure your baking powder and baking soda are fresh! See the notes about testing these in the post.
- When you remove the cookies from the oven, they will seem undercooked, but they aren’t! Let them cool on the baking sheet and they will be perfection!
- If you like the salty/sweet flavor profile, sprinkle the cookies with a pinch of Maldon Flakey Sea Salt as soon as they come out of the oven!
- Any extra lemon juice that you end up with can be saved in the fridge for up to a week! Use it to flavor your sparkling water, or use it in a lemon drop cocktail!
- These cookies freeze beautifully either in fully cooked form, or in dough form! See the notes in the post above for tips for freezing and cooking frozen cookies.
Abby Salsman says
🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋
Love a lemon cookie!
mollieinmontana says
Me tooooo! 🙂