Sugared Lemon Cookies

5 from 1 vote

Bright, buttery, light, lemony! These cookies are made with nothing artificial, just fresh ingredients and lots of delicious lemon flavor. Plus, the dough freezes beautifully so you can always be just minutes away from freshly baked cookies!

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Prep Time:15

Cook Time:10

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American

Keyword: cookies, easy dessert, lemon cookies, sugar cookies

Servings: cookies

Calories: 125kcal

Author: Mollie

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 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoon Lemon Zest (zest of 2 lemons)
2 tablespoon Lemon Juice (Juice of 1 lemon)
2 ¾ cup All purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon 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 1 tablespoon 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.

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