Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Soft-centred lemon cookies with bright citrus flavour and a snowy powdered-sugar coating that cracks as they bake. Batch yield: 40 lemon crinkle cookies. One serving: 1 cookie, approximately 23 g after baking and cooling. Allow approximately 5 hours 38 minutes from starting to fully cooled cookies. Prep means non-oven elapsed time: 45 minutes butter softening, 40 minutes active work, 180 minutes mandatory chilling and 25 minutes cooling after the final batch. Active work includes mixing, coating and about 5 minutes of tray transfers between batches. Cook time is four sequential 12-minute batches, totalling 48 minutes. Preheating overlaps the final 20 minutes of chilling; cooling earlier batches and refrigerating waiting dough overlap later baking, so those periods are not added again. Appliances: Conventional or fan oven; Electric hand mixer; Refrigerator. Equipment: Two 33 × 45 cm baking trays; Baking parchment; Two large plates; Digital kitchen scales; Measuring jug and measuring spoons; Two mixing bowls; Two shallow coating bowls; Whisk; Flexible spatula; Fine citrus zester; Manual citrus juicer; Bowl cover; Cookie spatula; Wire cooling racks. Allergens: Contains wheat flour, butter and egg. Check packaged ingredients for any additional product-specific allergens. Nutrition is estimated per cookie, including the full measured sugar coating. Storage: Once completely cool, store airtight at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the refrigerator for up to 7 days. Freeze in an airtight container, with parchment between layers, for up to 3 months. Thaw covered at room temperature. The powdered-sugar coating may soften during storage.
290 min
Prep
48 min
Cook
40
Serves
100
Calories
Macros · per serving
1g protein
16g carbs
4g fat
Ingredients
For 40 servings
- 313 g Plain all-purpose wheat flour
- 3 g Cornflour (cornstarch)
- 5 g Bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 3 g Fine salt
- 170 g Unsalted butter
- 225 g Granulated sugar for the dough
- 1 whole egg Large egg
- 60 ml Lemon juice
- 8 g Finely grated lemon zest, yellow part only
- 5 ml Vanilla extract
- 35 g Granulated sugar for coating
- 120 g Icing sugar (powdered sugar)
Instructions
- 1
Cut the butter into small pieces and leave at room temperature for about 45 minutes, until easily indented but not oily or melted. Let the whole egg and measured lemon juice come to room temperature during the same period.
- 2
Line two 33 × 45 cm baking trays and two large plates with baking parchment. Whisk the flour, cornflour, bicarbonate of soda and salt together in a bowl.
- 3
In a separate large bowl, beat the softened butter and 225 g dough sugar with an electric mixer for 2–3 minutes until lighter and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then the lemon zest and vanilla. Gradually beat in the lemon juice on low speed; the mixture may look slightly curdled.
- 4
Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed just until no dry flour remains, scraping the bowl with a spatula. The dough should be soft and sticky. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours.
- 5
During the final 20 minutes of chilling, preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F conventional or 155°C/310°F fan, with a rack in the centre. Put the 35 g coating sugar and the icing sugar into separate shallow bowls.
- 6
Divide the chilled dough into 40 equal portions, approximately 21 g each. Roll briefly into balls, then roll each ball in granulated sugar followed by a thick layer of icing sugar. Distribute the measured coating sugars across all 40 cookies, patting on a second layer of icing sugar where needed. Keep the coated balls on the prepared plates in the refrigerator while they wait to bake.
- 7
Arrange 10 balls on one prepared tray, leaving about 5 cm between them; do not flatten. Bake on the centre rack for 12 minutes. The cookies should be puffed, with cracked white tops, set edges and centres that look soft but no longer wet or glossy.
- 8
Bake the remaining cookies in three more batches of 10, alternating the two trays and using only a completely cooled tray for each new batch. Keep waiting dough refrigerated. Total oven time is 48 minutes across four sequential batches.
- 9
Let each batch stand on its tray for 5 minutes, then carefully transfer to a wire rack for about 20 minutes, until completely cool. Earlier batches can cool while later batches bake. The centres firm up as they cool; do not pack the cookies while warm.
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