Lemon Crinkle Cookies – Deliciously soft and chewy lemon-infused cookies that are bursting with flavour, and coated in icing sugar for a beautiful crinkled effect. These are the BEST chewy lemon cookies!
Why you’ll love this recipe
Looking for the perfect lemon cookies that are both gorgeous and delicious? Look no further!
These cookies are thick and chewy, bursting with lemon flavour, and generously coated in icing sugar to create a beautiful crinkled effect.
They are so quick and easy to make and only require simple ingredients you probably already have at home.
These are the BEST cookies for Spring/Summer time!
Looking for more lemon desserts? Check out my Easy Lemon Tart, Lemon Truffles, and my Lemon Bars.
Ingredients you’ll need
Here’s a list of ingredients you’ll need to make these cookies. You can find my recipe card at the bottom of this post for the complete list with their amounts.
- Plain/all-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Large egg
- Caster/granulated sugar: Using all-white sugar keeps these cookies light and pale in colour. Whether you use food colouring or not, these cookies will be bright and perfect for Spring/Summer time!
- Vegetable oil: Using oil instead of butter in this recipe makes for the most soft and chewy cookies. Using butter resulted in more cakey cookies that didn’t crinkle at all for me.
- Fresh lemon juice: Freshly-squeezed lemon juice will give the best flavour.
- Lemon extract: For an extra dose of lemon flavour.
- Vanilla extract
- Lemon zest
- Yellow food colouring: Optional, but I love the pop of colour it gives when paired with the icing sugar!
- Granulated sugar and icing/powdered sugar: Rolling the dough balls in granulated sugar first helps the icing sugar stay put, creating more beautiful crinkles!
How to make Lemon Crinkle Cookies
To make these cookies, simply whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a separate large bowl, whisk together the egg and sugar.
Add the vegetable oil, lemon juice, lemon extract, vanilla, and zest, and whisk until combined.
If using, add enough yellow food colouring to reach desired shade.
Add the dry ingredients and fold in until combined.
TIP: I like to refrigerate my dough for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight, for thicker cookies with even prettier crinkles. Chilling is not mandatory – you can bake these cookies off straight away!
Using a small cookie scoop, scoop out the dough and roll into balls.
Add the icing sugar and granulated sugar to two separate bowls. Roll each dough ball into the granulated sugar first, then generously roll in the icing sugar.
TIP: I like to roll mine in icing sugar 2 – 3 times to ensure they are thoroughly coated. Once I’ve placed the dough balls on the baking tray after the first roll, I’ll go in and roll them in icing sugar again.
Place onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat and bake for 10 – 12 minutes. The cookies will be very soft, but will firm up as they cool.
Allow to cool on the baking tray for 5 – 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
The printable recipe card with the full list of ingredients, their measurements, and instructions can be found at the bottom of this post.
NOTE: For best results, I highly recommend using the gram measurements (with a digital scale), rather than the cup measurements. Cup measurements are simply not accurate enough, and I cannot guarantee the best results if you use them.
These Lemon Crinkle Cookies are:
- super quick and easy to make
- incredibly thick, soft, and chewy
- bursting with lemon flavour
- the absolute BEST lemon cookies!
How long will these lemon cookies last? These cookies will stay fresh, kept in an airtight container, at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Can I freeze these cookies? Yes, they also freeze well for up to 3 months.
Want freshly-baked cookies ever time? Cookie dough balls can be kept in the fridge for up to 5 days, or frozen for up to 3 months (without icing sugar).
When ready to bake, remove from the freezer, and leave to thaw on the counter for 30 minutes. Roll in the sugars, and bake as instructed.
Did You Make This Recipe?
Leave a ⭐️ review! I’d love to see your take on it — snap a photo and tag me on Instagram or Facebook with #simplybakeblog!
Try these cookies next!
- Iced Orange Cookies
- Mini Egg Cookies
- Chocolate Orange Brownie Cookies
- Peanut Butter M&M Cookies
- Glazed Lemon Cookies via Two Peas & Their Pod
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Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies
- 2 cups (250g) plain/all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg
- ¾ cup (150g) caster/granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (60ml) vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Yellow food colouring, optional
For the Coating
- ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (125g) icing/powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a baking tray with parchment paper, or a silicone mat. Set aside.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, whisk together the egg and sugar. Add the oil, lemon juice, lemon extract, vanilla, and zest, and whisk until combined.
- If using, add enough yellow food colouring to reach desired shade.
- Add the dry ingredients and fold in until combined.
- Optional: Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight, for even thicker cookies.
- Using a small cookie scoop, scoop out the dough and roll into balls.
- Add the icing sugar and granulated sugar to two separate bowls. Roll each dough ball into the granulated sugar first, then generously roll in the icing sugar.
- TIP: I like to roll mine in icing sugar 2 – 3 times to ensure they are thoroughly coated. Once I've placed the dough balls on the baking tray after the first roll, I'll go in and roll them in icing sugar again.
- Place onto the prepared baking tray and bake for 10 – 12 minutes. The cookies will be very soft, but will firm up as they cool.
- Allow to cool on the baking tray for 5 – 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information:
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
i made these cookies for a bake sale. they seemed to have bigger crinkles and weren’t white like in the picture but they still tasted good.
This is a great recipe and I enjoyed them but next time I will try to make it more lemony – just my preference. Thank you for sharing the recipe! 🙂
I did everything the recipe said to do— 350 degree temperature, used a gram scale (for the flour), rolled it in powder sugar 2 times, etc. Only mistake was listening to the comments that said it wasn’t lemony enough. Added like 1/4 of a teaspoon more lemon extract and 1/4 a tablespoon more zest (the lemon I grated had like 2 tbsp of zest and google said 1 was enough) and everything about the cookie is great, except the overpowering lemon aftertaste. So as long as you use gram scale measurements don’t listen to the comments.
Made these cookies. Baked a couple to see what they would look and taste like. They never spread out but tasted really good. So the next batch I flattened out and baked them that way.came out good. I also put in fridge over night. Chewy and delicious!
Is your oven temperature in °c normal oven or fan assisted?
Normal, not fan-assisted.
For some reason mine didn’t spread out. Instead they were balls but crinkly.. they were delicious, just not what I was expecting. Any idea what I did wrong?
These are great cookies and beautiful, but I found I wanted them to be more lemony— like the lemon cooler cookies that used to exist. I’m going to see how I can get them more tart in the future— just what my tastes want!
Hi Laura! You can try another teaspoon of lemon extract 🙂
@Laura, use Doterra essential Lemon oil. I also order the orange. Much stronger than extract.
Can I make these without egg?
Of course! You can make a flax egg using ground flaxseed and water. See here – https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_a_flax_egg/
I have also used unsweetened applesauce in my cookies. Use 1/4 cup (63g) unsweetened applesauce per egg.
I love lemon cookies and these are divine! So easy and fun, the lemon flavor is perfectly bright!
I tried my first lemon crinkle cookie at a restaurant a few weeks ago and have been itching to make a batch at home ever since. This recipe did NOT disappoint! The cookies were so soft, chewy, sweet and had the perfect lemon flavor. Definitely making again!