It is no secret that we love cookies… really love cookies. So while we already have quite some chocolate cookies recipes available, we wanted to add another taste as well. These lemon sugar cookies are very refreshing and combine the sweet and sour taste perfectly.
So if you are looking for something refreshing, sweet and sour then these lemon cookies are perfect for you.
Things to know before you start
Time Schedule
| Steps | Work time | Waiting time |
| Prepare lemon | ~10 minutes | – |
| Mix | ~15 minutes | – |
| Rest | – | 30 minutes |
| Shape (4x) | ~5 minutes | – |
| Bake (4x) | ~5 minutes | 10-12 minutes |
| Cool | – | 30 minutes |
| Glaze | ~15 minutes | 30 minutes |
In under 3,5 hours you will have a nice batch of lemon sugar cookies.
Info: The work and waiting times for the shape and bake steps are per baking plate full of cookies. You will have dough for about 4 full baking plates. So while one batch of cookies is baking in the oven, you can already prepare the next one.
Total ingredients
| Weight | Ingredient |
| 1x | Lemon (untreated) |
| 300 g | White sugar |
| 225 g | Butter |
| 8 g | Vanilla extract |
| 2x | Eggs (large) |
| 375 g | Pastry flour |
| 5 g | Baking powder |
| 3 g | Salt |
| ~100 g | Powdered sugar |
This recipe yields about 44 to 48 small lemon sugar cookies.
Difficulty
Another simple recipe for a lot of refreshing lemon sugar cookies.
Baking tools
A stand mixer or hand mixer, a bowl, 2 baking plates (1 is also fine) and parchment paper are needed. As usual for most cookie recipes a cookie scoop can come in handy for shaping the cookies so they all will be the same size, but it is not necessary. Using a tablespoon or simply your hands is also fine.
Also check out our list of baking tools that we are constantly using.
Steps
1. Prepare Lemon
| Weight | Ingredient |
| 1x | Lemon |
- Rinse the lemon under hot water and dry it off
- Grate the zest and put aside
- Squeeze out the juice of the lemon and also put aside
2. Mix
| Weight | Ingredient |
| – | Lemon zest |
| 10 g | Lemon juice |
| 300 g | White sugar |
| 225 g | Butter |
| 8 g | Vanilla extract |
| 2x | Eggs (large) |
- Mix the previously grated lemon zest, a bit of lemon juice and white sugar in a bowl with a mixer until incorporated
- Afterwards, add the softened butter and vanilla extract and mix further
- Add the eggs, one at a time and also mix until fully incorporated
| Weight | Ingredient |
| 375 g | Pastry flour |
| 5 g | Baking powder |
| 3 g | Salt |
- Sift all the dry ingredients together in a second bowl and stir until combined
- Carefully add them to the previously created dough step by step while mixing further on low speed until just combined to avoid overmixing
- The dough should be soft but still thick
3. Rest
- Store the cookie dough sealed in the fridge at 4-6°C (39,2-42,8°F) for 30 minutes
4. Shape
- Take 2 baking plates and cover them with parchment paper
- Use a cookie scoop or tablespoon to get some dough out of the bowl to have roughly the same amount of dough for every cookie
- Roll the dough with your hands into a ball of about 2,5 cm width and place next to each other on the baking plate
- We went for 12 lemon cookies per baking plate so we had 48 in total
5. Bake
- Preheat oven to 175°C (347°F) for ~20 minutes with the upper and lower heat function
- Put one baking plate in the middle rack of the oven and bake for a total of 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges get slightly brown
- After baking, take the lemon cookies out on the parchment paper they were baked on
6. Cool
- Let your lemon sugar cookies rest on the baking plate they were baked on for 5 minutes
- Afterwards transfer them, including the parchment paper, to a wire cooling rack for further cooling for about 25 minutes
7. Glaze
| Weight | Ingredient |
| 100 g | Powdered sugar |
| – | Lemon juice |
- Fill a small bowl with powdered sugar
- You will have to decide how thick you want the glaze to be because the less lemon juice you add the thicker the glaze will be
- Therefore take the lemon juice that you prepared beforehand, add just a bit of it to the powdered sugar and stir until well combined
- If you want to have the glaze less thick, just add a bit more juice and stir again until well combined
- After you get your preferred thickness with a small fork or spoon pour the glaze over the lemon sugar cookies creating little stripes
- Wait at least 30 minutes and check if the glaze has hardened enough
- If not, just give it some more time
Conclusion
Taste
The texture of these lemon sugar cookies is super soft, juicy and have a lovely crunchy edge where the dough is a little thinner.
So just the texture is a pleasure already. Talking about the taste there is a lot of lemon of course – that’s no surprise, right? They are sweet, you can see and taste the lemon juice and lemon zest we used for the dough.
Thanks to the icing, the cookies also have a nice touch of sourness and add another layer of lemon taste.
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