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Soft, chewy, lemon cookies that are delectable. These are so delicious. Cooking them is a little bit of a mess, but so worth it in the end.
Preparations
For this lemon cookie recipe, I made sure to set everything out ahead of making it. I often bake and one of my tricks, so that I do not forget some ingredients, is to take all the ingredients out and set them on my counter. Once I measure and add each ingredient, I will put them in my pantry. Putting the ingredients away keeps me from forgetting an ingredient or putting one in twice by mistake.
Gather the ingredients together. Take your lemon and zest it with a grater. Zest until you have enough for one teaspoon. One lemon yielded one teaspoon of zest for me. Not sure if one lemon will always do so, but for me, it seemed to do so perfectly.
You have two options for the butter. Leave the butter out for an hour or two, or melt it slightly in the microwave. I did not have as much time as I had hoped, so I microwaved mine for thirty seconds. Now you are ready to begin combining ingredients for this lemon cookie recipe.
Mixing the Lemon Cookie Recipe Ingredients
Now is the time to whip up some lemon cookies. I prefer to have my lemon cookie recipe printed out so I can refer back to it. You can either print it or keep it up on your phone. Either way, you reference it. Here is how you start the recipe.
Combine the softened butter and granulated sugar in a large mixing bowl. Mix the butter and sugar with a mixer until it is thoroughly combined. The mixture should be light and somewhat fluffy. Add in vanilla extract, egg, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix well. Scrape the sides of the bowl to include all in the mixing.
On a plate, dump the powdered sugar. Take the cookie dough, which will be slightly messy, and form it into balls. Place the balls of cookie dough in the powdered sugar. Roll the dough balls in the powdered sugar to cover them completely.
Place the cookie dough balls evenly on parchment paper on your cookie sheets. There is no need to mash the balls. The dough balls will spread as they are baking.
As long as you space the dough balls evenly apart, they should not spread to the point of touching. If the cookies do end up touching, cut them apart.
The time to cook is nine to eleven minutes. I put the variation because some ovens cook hotter than others despite 350 degrees on the oven setting. The bottom of the cookie should be just slightly golden brown.
Consistency of the Dough
Once all the ingredients are combined and mixed thoroughly, except powdered sugar, the dough will be sticky. The dough is much sloppier than that of a traditional chocolate chip cookie. At first, when I made these, I thought I had messed up the recipe. I was used to the thicker dough of traditional cookie dough. My cookie dough baller did not quite work with this recipe. I ended up using my fingers. I had a mess. Once I coated the dough blobs with powdered sugar, I could set them reasonably easily on the cookie sheet. I was concerned at first if they would turn out well. They turned out perfectly! I was delighted. My family ended up loving them.
They are messy to eat because powdered sugar goes everywhere. I suggest not wearing black when eating these.
Check out my other cookie recipes:
Perfect Twist of Lemon
Lemon Crinkle Cookie
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- ⅛ tsp baking soda
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy.
- Mix in the vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix well.
- In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients except for the powdered sugar. Mix well.
- Gradually add the dry mixture to the large bowl of wet ingredients. Mix well.
- Pour the powdered sugar onto a plate.
- Scoop a ball of cookie dough and drop it onto the powdered sugar plate. Roll till fully covered.
- Place on a cookie sheet evenly spaced.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes or until the bottoms are barely brown.