Just like chocolate crinkle cookies, these lemon crinkle cookies are soft-baked and chewy, coated in confectioners’ 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 “very lemon” because there is so much natural lemon flavor!
This recipe is part of my annual holiday cookie countdown called Sally’s Cookie Palooza. Every year since 2013, I work on a handful of new cookie recipes and publish the 10 best ones for readers to enjoy. It’s the biggest, tastiest event of the year on my website!
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, I’m introducing a zesty (and festive looking!) sweet-tart lemon cookie to your annual lineup of Christmas cookies.
Here’s Why You’ll 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 confectioners’ sugar coating—no 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 or Nutella crinkle cookies 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 surface… but with the fresh flavor of citrus. Unlike these lemon ginger cookies or lemon coconut shortbread cookies, there’s no competing flavor today. This is a purely lemon-flavored cookie, and it’s 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 confectioners’ 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 you’ll 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.
- 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 don’t 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.
- Confectioners’ Sugar: For rolling.
In Photos: How to Make Lemon Crinkle Cookies
After you make the dough, you’ll notice it’s quite soft and fluffy. That’s totally expected, and the dough needs to chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours. I know it’s 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 confectioners’ 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 they’ll 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 can’t get enough lemon flavor, try my lemon thumbprint cookies next.
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 Recipes collection page. I hope you love these too.
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 lover’s 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
- 2 and 1/2 cups (313g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch*
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons (225g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup (60ml) fresh or bottled lemon juice, at room temperature*
- 1 Tablespoon lemon zest* (packed Tablespoon, it’s a lot of zest!)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For Rolling
- 3 Tablespoons (35g) granulated sugar (optional, see step 6)
- 1 cup (120g) confectioners’ 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 1 minute. 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 that’s 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 350°F (177°C). 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 confectioners’ 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 confectioners’ sugar. If you want lots of confectioners’ sugar to show on the baked cookies, roll 2-3x in sugar! Place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets.
- Bake the cookies for 12–13 minutes or until the edges appear set and the centers still look soft. Tip: If they aren’t really spreading by minute 9, remove them from the oven and lightly bang the baking sheet on the counter 2–3x. 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.
- 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 confectioners’ sugar) freeze well up to 3 months. When it’s time to bake the cookies, remove them from the freezer and thaw on the counter for at least 30 minutes. Roll into confectioners’ sugar as instructed and bake.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Citrus Juicer | Citrus Zester | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or 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 don’t 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 1–2 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.
So good! I did add two additional tablespoons of zest and a tablespoon of lemon extract.
Love this recipe! After reading the comments, I went for a bit of extra lemon “pow”. Used 3 full tablespoons zest and put it in my Kitchenaid with the sugar to macerate for about 5 minutes (draws out the oils better). Used a teaspoon of lemon extract plus the vanilla extract. R scooped all my dough while it was still room temp onto a parchment and threw it into the fridge overnight. Rolled the dough balls the next day and coated with granulated sugar I flavored with a teaspoon of lemoncello, then dusted the whole tray with powdered sugar and rolled them around until fully coated. Put them back in the fridge until I could bake them tonight. Crinkly, lemony perfection. LOVED the tip to roll them in granulated sugar first, then the powdered sugar! A total game changer.
I made these for Valentine’s Day and decided to experiment. I added freeze dried raspberries to make raspberry lemon cookies. They turned out a nice pink color and tasted delicious. Thanks for the recipe!
This recipe made nice little lemon clouds. The lemon was very mild though, even though I used good quality fresh lemons. Midway through the batch I hand-stirred in an additional 2 tablespoons of zest and the resulting cookies were much better. I didn’t plan on doing the sugar roll because the batter was so sweet and I was glad I didn’t because there was no crackle. They have a nice wrinkle, but nothing more. Banging the pan didn’t help. My dough was initially chilled for 6 hours and was chilled in between oven batches. Dough balls ranged from 21 – 23 grams and were baked on parchment.
What? These are amazing! So I’ve only been baking for a few months. And love lemon. So I had to try this out. It was easy to follow and came out absolutely perfect my first try. I read all the comments and was worried they wouldn’t have that “crinkle” but they did and I didn’t even have to pull it out at 9min. These will definitely be a repeat for me and my family.
I just made these and holy WOW! 10 out of 10 my friend. These will probably become a staple in our house. I can’t wait to try other citrus flavors. These are so good. I didn’t have any issues with the batter or anything. I can not stop eating them. 🙂
Easy to follow and everyone loved them!
I make this for my family recently and it was a hit!! Even my dad loved it and he is hard to please lol I printed and saved the recipe for future gatherings. Thank you.
The recipe was easy to follow but I found there was too much sugar in the cookie mixture. Thankfully I only used 1 cup overall. The lemon flavour was not as tart or as pronounced as I was hoping. I’ll try increasing more lemon zest next time. Otherwise the cookie has a nice crispiness and snap after I added another 2 minutes to the cooking time.
Ok this was amazing! Will be making again! I agree with what she said. Make sure you really put the powdered sugar on. Or it will melt into the cookie. Either way they are so good.
This was a complete fail for me and I’m so perplexed as to why (I’ve made cookies all my life and never came across an issue as big as this one). I followed the recipe very precisely, carefully measured my ingredients, made sure my oven temp was accurate and chilled the dough well over 3 hours (rolled the balls of rough in granulated sugar then generously in the confectioners sugar). My cookies spread, leaked and came out extremely flat and some even burned on the bottom. I have absolutely no clue what could have gone wrong 🙁 Tried anywhere from 9-13 mins and got the same result regardless.
Hi Bonnie, I’m just seeing your comment now and can absolutely help for next time. Was the entire batch like you describe? Because, in some cookie recipes, I’ve had that happen to cookies that have extra buttery spots where the butter wasn’t completely mixed. The leaking/burning description is what made me think of that. For the flat cookies issue, it could also be that, or just a matter of adding a little more flour to the dough to help absorb some of the liquid. Thank you for trying the recipe.
I made these on a cold day for fun. They were amazing. My son called them“bussin’ bussin’” which I think is good.I kind of wanted a bit more lemon, so I will add more lemon juice. But all together, pretty good.
Of the 6 cookiepalooza cookie recipes I made this year, this was my personal fave! You need to be super ridiculously generous with the powdered sugar.
I loved this recipe. My family loved them. And even my neighbors wanted more. Left batter in fridge overnight and they were easy to roll in confectionery sugar. Will definitely make these again soon.
I used the recipe as listed but I put the zest in the sugar and worked it together in a zipper bag, let that oil from the zest really work into the sugar, it ended up looking like slightly wet sand. It really saved that lemony pop I think.
I added about a half a teaspoon of lemon extract to this recipe. I also added more lemons zest otherwise not enough lemon flavor. I tried several methods of rolling in sugars, but these cookies do not crinkle. I don’t understand how anyone could say they do. I ended up frosting them with a cream cheese lemon frosting, which was very tangy and rich and delicious and really made the cookies. So, as is, this recipe is not the greatest, although the texture of the cookies was good. I also reduced the sugar in the cookie to 3/4 cup. Way too much sugar.
I have not tried another lemon crinkle cookie recipe, but I will just to see if there is actually one that wrinkles and also tastes good.
These were a miss for me. After reading the comments, I decided to up to lemon zest (~2TBS) and the cookies had a faint lemon flavor. Additional zest or extract is necessary. I also had an issue with the sugar melting (one coating of granulated sugar + two coatings of powdered sugar). The amount of sugar needed to get a visually appealing crinkle makes the cookie too sweet and takes away from the lemon flavor. Most of Sally’s recipes are awesome, but this one is worth passing on.
I usually have success with all of Sally’s recipes, however, this recipe fell short. I read other reviews and decided to up the lemon zest (~2TBS). Without that I don’t think there would be any flavor. The other issue is the powdered sugar melting. After a base coating in granulated sugar followed by three coatings of powdered sugar, I finally achieved the white caps I expect from a crinkle cookie, but at the expense of the tart lemon flavor.
Fantastic recipe, these turned out so well. Thank’s so much Sally.
We always add a lemon touch to our Christmas cookie day baking list, and I knew this was going to be included this year as soon as I saw it. They came out wonderful, we did roll in granulated sugar before powdered sugar.
These are delicious! I read the comments before making; since several people commented that the lemon flavor was too subtle, I added a teaspoon of lemon extract and they are absolutely perfect! I also rolled the balls in sugar, rolled again in the palm of my hand, and rolled back in sugar before rolling them in confectioners sugar.
These were good. I read all the comments beforehand and added extra lemon juice and zest to really get the lemon flavor. Mine didn’t look anything like the ones in the picture however. Like someone else said, i rolled 2-3x in sugar and confectioners and they still kind of looked like sugar cookies. The flavor, however with extra lemon was delicious!
Tried this recipe as part of my Christmas baking this year. It was a huge success. Everyone loved these cookies. I also made your peppermint bark and peanut butter truffles. Both are delicious and will be made many more times. I particularly like that you include metric weights in your recipes. Weighing ingredients makes baking so much easier. I have learned so much from your website. Thank you!!!
I absolutely love these cookies! I followed recipe exactly and they turned out perfect. Thank you Sally for another great recipe!!
I read all of the comments ahead of time and I had about the same results. The raw cookie dough tasted intensely lemony but the finished cookies definitely lacked lemon flavor. It was barely noticeable. I made sure and packed the zest but it still didn’t result in enough lemon flavor. Despite rolling very heavily in powdered sugar (and a coating of granulated sugar beforehand) I lost most of the crinkle effect during baking. I would try again perhaps with lemon extract like many others have done.. I would also add yellow food coloring, as the finished cookies just looked like sugar cookies. I really wanted a tart and lemony cookie, and these just didn’t come through unfortunately.
Has anyone added pure lemon extract? Thoughts?
I used LorAnn Lemon emulsion instead of the vanilla extract. The nice thing about emulsions is they don’t bake out, like extracts do. I also rolled the cookies in fine sugar, then in the powdered sugar. They were very tasty, not super bright lemon like I would have preferred.
I did – they came out excellent!
I have, it well!
They taste good, but I definitely think they need more of a lemon flavor. It is very subtle. Mine also didn’t spread much even after smacking the tray on the counter at 9 minutes. Overall they’re good, but didn’t have the bright lemon taste or the crinkle I was hoping for.
I made these and the taste great but mine spread a bit and don’t look like crinkles. I am wondering why? I did made the dough ahead of time and froze it.
These were a big hit this year – everyone’s favorite! So this recipe will be on the holiday cookie list from now on. My daughter announced yesterday that she’d eaten the last one and I better make more soon because she doesn’t want to wait until next Christmas.
I used a #50 scoop and got 36 cookies. I rolled them in a lot of confectioner’s sugar and would certainly do that again. I might add a touch more zest next time. It would be fun to try this with blood oranges.
Excellent recipe and delicious cookies. I almost want a little more lemon though. Maybe next time I’ll add more fresh juice and zest. This is one of 8 cookies I’m making right now. More reviews coming. Thanks!