Lemon Crinkle Cookies

If you love thick, cakey cookies, then you’ll love these lemon crinkle cookies! Made with just a few simple ingredients - including boxed cake mix - this is A straightforward cookie recipe to make for any occasion that everyone is sure to love.

The Easiest Cookies You’ll Ever Make

If you like lemon, then you will love these cookies. Moreover, if you love speedy recipes that you mix together in one bowl with one spoon and can enjoy fresh from the oven in less than 20 minutes, then definitely keep reading!

This is one of the easiest recipes we have ever encountered. You may have seen a version of this recipe before consisting of a cookie recipe based on a box cake mix. Often called crinkle cookies, there have been variations floating around the Internet for nearly 20 years now.

While we love baking from scratch, we also love to have a speedy shortcut in our back pocket for those days when we need to throw something rich together in a hurry. Safe to say these lemon crinkle cookies fit the bill!

Why we Love These Cookies

Taking a bite into these lemon cookies and you truly get a “burst” of lemon. The lemon cake mix is augmented with lemon zest, lemon juice, AND lemon extract. If you wanted to spice things up a bit, you could also substitute limoncello for the lemon juice in the recipe. (Our kind of cookie!)

These lemon crinkle cookies, not surprisingly, have a soft and cakey texture. Rolling them in powdered sugar provides a reliable balance to the tartness of the lemon. They would be a wonderful addition to a brunch spread, wedding, baby shower, or afternoon tea.

How To Make These Crinkle Cookies

1. Prep: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
2. Make the Dough: Pour the lemon cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, and lemon extract until well blended. (It’s OK to see some small lumps or streaks of flour.)
3. Prepare the Cookies: Place confectioner's sugar in a bowl. Then, roll a heaping tablespoonfuls of dough into a ball in your hands, drop in the bow of confectioner’s sugar, and gently roll it around until it’s lightly coated. Place on baking sheet, and repeat with remaining dough.
4. Bake: Once all of the dough is coated in the powdered sugar, bake them for 10 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool for 2-3 minutes on the cookie sheet, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Serve: We love serving these lemon cookies with hot tea or cold milk. They’re best fresh from the oven. Enjoy!

• Prepare the lemon crinkle cookie dough by combining dry and wet ingredients.
• Roll balls of the cookie dough in powdered sugar before baking.

Keeping leftovers

• Store cooled cookies in an airtight container or plastic bag at room temperature for up to 5 days.
• Freeze baked and cooled lemon cookies in an airtight, freezer-safe container or plastic bag for up to 1 month. You can also freeze the raw dough already rolled into balls and coated in powdered sugar for up to 3 months.
• Reheat baked cookies from frozen by simply allowing them to come to room temperature, or bake the frozen dough for the same cooking temperature and time as before, but with the ability to cook longer if needed (potentially 5-7 extra minutes). Or let the dough thaw overnight in the refrigerator before baking.

Baker notes

• Do not over-mix your batter. Just like with traditional cake recipes, you don’t want to beat the eggs too much and risk making these cakey cookies too dense. We want them to be light and fluffy.
• If you want more lemon flavor, add some extra lemon zest to the powdered sugar before baking or garnish the cooked cookies with some zest before serving.
• Change up the citrus! You can make these cookies with any citrus juice and zest. Oranges, limes, or Meyer lemons would be great. But stick with the lemon extract.
• Garnish with a lemon glaze to take these lemon cookies up a notch! Simply mix together powdered sugar and lemon juice until it’s a thick, but spreadable, consistency, and drizzle over the cookies once they’ve cooled.

• Yield: 24 cookies
• Prep: 15 minutes
• Cook: 10 minutes
• Total: 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 box ( 517.38 g ) lemon cake mix
• 2 eggs
• ⅓ cup ( 72.67 ml ) vegetable oil
• Zest of 2 lemons
• 2 tablespoons ( 2 Tablespoons ) lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon ( 0.5 teaspoon ) lemon extract
• ⅓ cup ( 40 g ) confectioner’s sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
2. Pour cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract until well blended.
3. Place confectioner's sugar in a bowl.
4. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of dough into balls and roll in confectioner's sugar until lightly coated and place on baking sheet.
5. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool for 2-3 minutes on the cookie sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes

Store cooled cookies in an airtight container or plastic bag at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Freeze baked and cooled lemon cookies in an airtight, freezer-safe container or plastic bag for up to 1 month. You can also freeze the raw dough already rolled into balls and coated in powdered sugar for up to 3 months.

Reheat baked cookies from frozen by simply allowing them to come to room temperature, or bake the frozen dough for the same cooking temperature and time as before, but with the ability to cook longer if needed (potentially 5-7 extra minutes). Or let the dough thaw in the refrigerator overnight before baking.

Photography by Dee Frances.