Lemon Crinkle Cookies are a bake sale favorite with surprising softness
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These big lemon crinkle cookies I daresay are the softest bright happy lemon sugar cookies you’ll ever eat rolled in powdered sugar twice before being baked to reveal the subtle pale yellow color that’s sure to bring smiles.
I’ve wanted to make a lemon version of my Gram’s soft sugar cookies for a long time. Little did I know that the lemon juice in these cookies would add even more softness to already super soft cookies. When you stir the lemon into the batter, it no joke looks like key lime pie filling.
Whatever I stumbled onto food chemistry-wise, these cookies are bound to be a favorite for everyday cookies, a special lunch treat, tailgating, Mother’s Day, and bake sales alike. There’s actually few events I can think these cookies wouldn’t work for.
They’re sunny and bright, and so so tender. Let’s bake a batch of lemon crinkles!
Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Why these cookies will intrigue you
- So soft: My everyday soft sugar cookies are already ultra soft and tender, but these little gems? They are the perfectly soft cookie you only dream about.
- Subtle contrast: the crinkle pattern isn’t as pronounced as it is when you bake chocolate crinkle cookies, but the distinct crackly pattern across the surface of the cookie is still an eye-catcher. These look homier and more inviting somehow than their dramatic contrast sisters.
- For lemon lovers: My husband is a devoted lemon lover (See the best lemon meringue bars for his literal favorite lemon dessert). If you love lemon like he does, you’ll get good lemon flavor here without having to use lemon extract, which can taste harsh.
Ingredients for Lemon Crinkle Cookies
- Butter
- Oil, preferably organic cold-pressed like La Tourangelle sunflower oil
- Lemon juice and lemon zest
- Granulated sugar
- Powdered sugar (for the dough and more for rolling)
- Egg
- Vanilla paste
- All-purpose flour
- Baking soda
- Cream of tartar
- Salt
Tricks for making the best lemon crinkle cookies
- Mix the lemon juice with the oil and vanilla: This way you can stream in the liquid ingredients while you’re beating the butter to make a creamy soft base before adding in the egg and dry ingredients.
- Chill: This dough, like those in my other soft sugar cookies is very soft and must be chilled before baking.
- Use a cookie scoop: Cookie scoops help you get even sized cookies that will then bake evenly into even sized cookies. I like my black Vollrath here (1 oz).
- Roll twice: By rolling twice in powdered sugar, once before freezing and once after, you ensure that you’ll get as pronounced of a crinkle texture as you can get.
More soft sugar cookies to bake up for everyday treats
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Lemon Crinkle Cookies
- Total Time: 1 hour 36 minutes
- Yield: 24 cookies 1x
Description
Super soft sugar cookies are made even softer with the addition of lemon juice. These cookies will stay soft for days and have a pleasing bright citrus flavor that’s welcome any time of year.
Ingredients
Lemon Crinkle Dough
- 1/4 cup oil (preferably cold-pressed safflower or sunflower, see note) (59 mL)
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- 1 stick butter, at room temperature (113 g)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 g)
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar (60 g)
- 1 large egg
- Zest from 1 lemon, grated
- 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour (276 g)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For baking
- 1 cup powdered sugar for rolling
Instructions
Make the dough
- Whisk the oil together with the vanilla and the lemon juice.
- Beat the butter in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer just to soften it. Slowly drizzle in the oil with the mixer on until you have a smooth mixture of butter and oil.
- Add in the sugars and beat to combine.
- Mix in the egg and lemon zest. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and then mix for a few more seconds until you have a very smooth batter.
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt in another bowl.
- With the mixer on, slowly add the flour to the liquid mixture just until combined.
Rolling and baking
- Chill the dough for 30 minutes.
- Pour the powdered sugar for rolling into a pie plate or other shallow tray. Scoop out balls of dough with a cookie scoop or using a spoon. Roll the dough balls in the powdered sugar.
- Place the sugared dough balls in a tray and freeze for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Line 2 sheet trays with parchment.
- While the oven is heating up, take out the partially frozen dough balls. Roll them in your hands to round off the shape, and then roll them again in powdered sugar.
- Place 6 balls on a sheet tray for baking.
- Loading up the oven with 2 sheet trays at a time, bake the cookies for 8 minutes. After 8 minutes, rotate the sheet trays 180 degrees, and then swap the trays from top to bottom (or bottom to top as it were). Bake for 7-8 more minutes (15-16 minutes total). You’ll know the cookies are done when the tops are set and your finger no longer leaves a mark if you poke the middle of a cookie.
- Allow the cookies to cool for about 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
- Keep baking cookies until you run out of dough balls, making sure you start with cooled pans.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. You can also freeze these cookies or the dough itself for up to 3 months.
Notes
A note on oil: I’ve moved away from using industrial seed oils in my cooking. For these cookies, you really do want the softness that oil gives to baked goods and not just the gorgeous toothy edge that butter lends to cookies. As such, try to use neutral unrefined, high oleic or cold pressed oils like safflower, sunflower. La Tourangelle makes some really good oils that will change how you think about oil.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- + 45 minutes chilling time:
- Cook Time: 36 minutes
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 145
- Sugar: 11.6 g
- Sodium: 78.6 mg
- Fat: 6.4 g
- Carbohydrates: 20.6 g
- Protein: 1.5 g
- Cholesterol: 17.9 mg
