Soft and chewy Lemon Crinkle Cookies made from scratch.
Ingredients
- 115 grams (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 150 grams (3/4 cup) caster sugar or granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 245 grams (1 and 3/4 cups) plain flour or all purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Zest of 1 large lemon or 2 small ones
- 30 ml (2 tablespoons) fresh lemon juice
- 35 grams (1/4 cup) white chocolate chips, optional
Sugar coating
- 100 grams (1/2 cup) white sugar or granulated sugar
- 65 grams (1/2 cup) pure icing sugar or powdered sugar, sifted
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add butter and sugar. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add vanilla and egg and beat again until combined.
- Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add lemon zest and juice. Beat briefly until soft cookie dough forms. Stir through chocolate chips, if using.
- Cover cookie dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F) standard / 160 C (320 F) fan-forced. Line two baking trays or cookie sheets with baking or parchment paper.
- Set out your sugars in two bowls ready for rolling. Then scoop out cookie dough, roughly 1.5 tablespoons per cookie, and roll into balls using your hands.
- Roll each cookie dough ball first in the white sugar and then in the icing sugar, before placing on your prepared trays. Leave room for cookies to spread in the oven. Repeat until all cookie dough balls have been coated in the two sugars.
- Do a quick check and if any of your cookie dough balls aren’t looking completely covered in icing sugar, roll them again. Don’t shake off the excess sugar.
- Bake cookies for approximately 12-13 minutes or until they’ve spread out and developed a crinkly top. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before carefully transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Sugar coating: I highly recommend rolling these cookies in both sugars before baking to achieve that snow-white crinkle top. Unfortunately, caster sugar doesn’t work so well as it is very fine, so I recommend rolling them in white sugar (or granulated sugar) first. Then roll them in the icing sugar (or powdered sugar). For best results, use a pure icing sugar, rather than icing sugar mixture which has cornflour in it.
Make ahead: You can make and chill the cookie dough in advance – but you must roll the cookie dough in the sugars right before baking. You can’t do that step ahead of time. You can also freeze the cookie dough. But again, you will need to roll the cookie dough in the sugar coating when you are ready to bake them. You will also need to slightly defrost the cookie dough first – either leave it in the fridge overnight or thaw it at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Storage: These cookies will keep well in an airtight container at room temperature.
