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Soft, buttery and zingy lemon crinkle cookies with an icing sugar coating, that are melt in your mouth perfect. 

Say hello to your new favourite cookie obsession, the lemon crinkle cookie. The perfect spring cookie bake that you’ll want to make over and over again. 

Lemon bakes

When it comes to baking with lemon, I am already obsessed. I can’t help but be interested when someone says “I’m baking lemon…” no matter what that bake is. After endless lemon based bakes on this blog such as my Lemon Meringue Blondies, my Lemon Drizzle Traybake, and my Lemon and Raspberry Cake, I wanted to do another lemon based cookie. 

When it comes to lemon cookies, I adore my Glazed Lemon Cookies, but I wanted to bake another gloriously delicious lemon based cookie. I just have an addiction to the zesty and zingy flavour at the moment and I can’t get enough.

Cookies

When it comes to cookies, you can say that I am pretty much obsessed. I adore them, they are probably my favourite thing to make at the moment and have been for a while, and a lot of you adore my cookie recipes as well. My chocolate chip nyc cookies are pretty much one of the top three bakes on this blog now, and I am not stopping with my cookie obsession any time soon. 

I think trying different types of cookies is always fun in baking as well though with my homemade Jammie dodgers, to my homemade bourbon biscuits… I have room for all cookies in my life. These cookies are a little different to them all, and I adore that. 

Crinkle Cookies

So, crinkle cookies… these are quite a unique type of cookie, that I recently have been baking over and over and I can’t stop. The classic is a chocolate flavour, which I will develop and write soon, but honestly? I wanted to try a different version to the classic to start

  • Lemon – So as I wanted these to be super lemon like, I used the zest of 3 lemons. However, 2tsps lemon extract will work well
  • Sugar – I use caster sugar as I wanted the lighter colour for the cookie
  • Oil – I tend to use sunflower oil, but vegetable oil works well 
  • Eggs – medium eggs as always, guys!
  • Flour – plain flour is important here because you want to control the raising agent better
  • Baking powder – and as mentioned above, only 1 tsp for the quantity of flour is all you need
  • Salt – I adore a pinch of salt in these, it balances the flavour perfectly 

Baking

Making the dough for these cookies is quite easy, and I just use my stand mixer to whack it together. The dough needs chilling once made, before you scoop it, and I promise you it’s worth the wait. 

The part of these cookies that I adore is that they have the sweetness of the icing sugar around the outside, and it also creates a beautiful pattern that I adore. It may sound a little weird to have icing sugar on raw cookie dough if you haven’t experienced these cookies before, but trust the process.

I tend to scoop my crinkle cookies with my cookie scoop of spoons, and roll into the icing sugar immediately – and then add to my lined trays. Make sure your oven is fully pre-heated at this point as you’ll want them to go straight into the oven after coating in the sugar. 

Bake them on the lined trays, and leave to cool and you have the best lemon crinkle cookies ever. 

Tips & Tricks 

  • If you want these to be slightly more yellow in colour, you can add some food colouring to the cookie dough but I personally don’t bother. 
  • You can swap the lemon zest to 2tsps of lemon extract, but avoid using lemon juice as it’s too much ‘wet’ for the dough and won’t bring the flavour you want. 
  • These will last for 4-5+ days at room temperature, and they will also freeze for 3+ months 
  • I use this cookie scoop
  • I use these large baking trays

 

Lemon Crinkle Cookies!

Soft, buttery and zingy lemon crinkle cookies with an icing sugar coating, that are melt in your mouth perfect. 
Print Pin Rate
Category: Cookies
Type: Cookies
Keyword: Lemon
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Cooling time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Servings: 15 cookies
Author: Jane's Patisserie

Ingredients

  • Zest of 3 lemons
  • 225 g caster sugar
  • 75 ml sunflower oil
  • 3 medium eggs
  • 400 g plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 50 g icing sugar

Instructions

  • Add the flour, baking powder, caster sugar and salt to a bowl and mix 
  • Add the lemon zest, eggs, oil and mix 
  • Add to a bowl and chill for an hour
  • Preheat the oven to 190ºc/170ºfan and line two large baking trays 
  • Grab tablespoon scoops of the cookie dough and roll into a ball
  • Roll these into icing sugar and place onto the trays
  • Bake in the oven for 10 minutes 
  • Leave to cool and enjoy 

Notes

  • If you want these to be slightly more yellow in colour, you can add some food colouring to the cookie dough but I personally don't bother. 
  • You can swap the lemon zest to 2tsps of lemon extract, but avoid using lemon juice as it's too much 'wet' for the dough and won't bring the flavour you want. 
  • These will last for 4-5+ days at room temperature, and they will also freeze for 3+ months 
  • I use this cookie scoop
  • I use these large baking trays

 

ENJOY!

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J x

© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.

50 Comments

  1. Sophie on March 2, 2025 at 7:35 pm

    Hiya, I made these for my so. And they were great. However he’s type one diabetic, do you have any nutritional info for your recipes to help us?

    Thanks

    • Fernanda on August 22, 2025 at 3:19 pm

      that’s the best cookie i’ve ever done!!!!



  2. Jess on February 9, 2025 at 5:05 pm

    Hi, I’ve made these before and loved them but now trying to reduce my consumption of seed oils… is there a sub you’d recommend for the sunflower oil!?

    • Amanda on November 26, 2025 at 6:58 am

      Hi, I tried to make theses last night I followed everything on the rescip correctly and once u took them out the fridge I managed to roll 2 into balls but then it started sticking to my hand so couldn’t roll them. I put the 2 I had rolled into the oven for the time it said and they dint bake they just came put flat and under cooked?



    • Jane's Patisserie on November 26, 2025 at 10:28 am

      Hey! This sounds like an incorrect ingredient was used or something wasn’t measured accurately – what oil did you use? x



    • Alison Weddell on December 9, 2025 at 9:43 am

      I use vegetable oil and works great.



  3. Mary on December 16, 2024 at 7:18 pm

    Can you leave them in the fridge over night?

  4. Carly on December 1, 2024 at 10:27 am

    My mixture isn’t very wet at all. Is this right?

    • Shanya on December 6, 2025 at 6:33 pm

      5 stars
      Sorry, what butter? You asked someone what type of butter they used but the recipe says oil. I am totally confused. I’ve just put the dough in the fridge. Hoping it works. I’ll update accordingly



  5. Barbara on July 17, 2024 at 2:29 pm

    I have already made these & they looked lovely.
    The question is if freezing the rolled balls of dough is it best to roll in icing sugar before freezing or when they are taken out to bake?
    Thank you

    • Jane's Patisserie on July 18, 2024 at 9:16 am

      It’s probably easier to do it after to get best results! x



  6. Liz Murthar on July 14, 2024 at 4:30 pm

    4 stars
    I made these today I cooked for 14 minutes and the middle still seems a little raw? I also didnt get the icing sugar pattern, it seemed to disappear during baking , any idea why this might have happened? I sprinkled some on after

    • Jane's Patisserie on July 18, 2024 at 9:17 am

      This sounds like the temp of your oven may be too low so the sugar has basically soaked off and made the cookies not bake properly – try a slightly higher temp! x



  7. Victoria Merrell on July 10, 2024 at 11:57 pm

    5 stars
    I’ve just made these for my citrus-obsessed partner and he’s very excited!
    I left the mixture in the fridge for around an hour, but it still seems to be too wet to roll in to balls. Do I add a little icing sugar to the mixture, or is there something else I can try? I’ve popped it back in the fridge for now 😅
    Thanks! 🖤

    • Jane's Patisserie on July 18, 2024 at 9:23 am

      I would add a little extra flour, or freeze before baking if you can? Try and firm it up a little! x



  8. Steph on June 11, 2024 at 11:46 am

    If I make a batch, can I freeze them? And if so, do I bake from frozen?

  9. Agatha on June 6, 2024 at 4:25 pm

    Can the raw cookies be frozen then baked from frozen

  10. Sharron on June 6, 2024 at 1:12 pm

    Hi there, absolutely adore all your recipes , and so does my family !
    I’m going to make these tomorrow and wondered if I could add some white chocolate chips to the bake ?
    Thanks 🥰

  11. Barbara on May 26, 2024 at 11:05 am

    This recipe looks lovely & I am with you in normally using zest of lemons but if I wanted to make double quantity that is a lot of lemons & although against the grain wonder about lemon extract.
    As you might have some experience of using them….,
    Have you a view on the best one(s) to use?
    Thank you

    • Jane's Patisserie on May 27, 2024 at 10:23 am

      Both zest and extract will work well, I use Nielsen Massey lemon extract, or a Sicilian one from a supermarket x



  12. Heather Winslade on May 5, 2024 at 10:28 am

    Just made these. So easy, and so delicious. This will be one of my go to recipes. Thank you.

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