Soft and Chewy Lemon Sugar Cookies
These soft and chewy lemon sugar cookies are the perfect treat to serve this spring!
When spring rolls around I find myself craving all things lemon (any other lemon lovers out there?!). These chewy and soft lemon sugar cookies are my current go to for spring baking. Next time you’re headed to a picnic or having friends over, whip up a quick batch of these lemon sugar cookies!
I’m a little bit of a cookie snob. I’ll go ahead and put that out there. I want my cookies to be filled with flavor, have a bit of chew to them but also a tiny bit of texture around the outside. Am I asking too much? I don’t think so. This lemon cookie recipe will make you an instant hero!
These cookies are just that! They have a delicious hint of lemon, they’re a melt in your mouth texture and they have a tiny bit of crunch right around the outside. They’re the type of cookie that you can’t just have one. I’m not a fan of sugar cookies that are crunchy and crisp. Give me soft sugar cookies with chewy texture and I’m a goner.
Ingredients
To make these delicious lemon sugar cookies, you’ll be using the following ingredients.
- Lemon Juice: I prefer using fresh lemons. Fresh lemon juice give the best flavor. If you’re in a bind you can absolutely use lemon juice from the bottle. For a last resort, you can always use lemon extract as well.Â
- Sugar
- Brown sugar
- Butter: I always use salted butter when baking. I love the sweet and salty flavor it brings. If you have unsalted butter, that works as well. Softened (room temperature)butter is best when making these cookies. If you haven’t had time to set out your butter, just pop your stick into the microwave for 5 seconds.
- Vanilla Extract: if you can splurge on the real vanilla extract, do that. Otherwise the artificial stuff works fine. Once you start using real vanilla extract, you’ll never be able to go back.
- Egg
- Flour: all purpose flour is what you’ll be using.
- Salt
- Baking Soda
- Baking Powder
- Cornstarch: this is a secret key ingredient that makes these cookies literally melt in your mouth. You can definitely leave this ingredient out if you don’t have it on hand or aren’t going to be to the grocery store any time soon. BUT- you’ll be able to tell a noticeable difference in the texture of the cookie.
How to Make Chew Lemon Sugar Cookies:
Preheat your oven to 350
- Set out your butter to soften
- Cream butter and mix in your sugars
- In a separate bowl whisk together your dry ingredients
- Add the dry ingredient flour mixture to the wet ingredients
- Line your baking sheet with parchment paper
- Roll 2 tablespoons of dough into dough balls. Place the dough balls on the cookie tray
- Bake for 10-13 minutes
Possible Variations:
If you’re wanting to customize this recipe, here are a few ideas…
- If you’re out of lemon or not a fan, you could easily omit the lemon flavor. This recipe makes a delicious chewy sugar cookie
- For a cool spring or summer treat, turn the Lemon Sugar Cookies into a refreshing ice cream sandwich. Using two of your chewy lemon cookies, sandwich a scoop of your favorite ice cream in between (I would recommend vanilla or raspberry). Wrap the individual ice cream sandwiches in plastic wrap once assembled. Pop them into the freezer for an hour to firm up. A quick and refreshing spring treat!
Expert Tip
take your cookies out of the oven before they look completely done. wait until the edges are slightly brown and the middle looks a bit gooey. once you have pulled out of the oven, let the cookies finish baking outside the oven on top of the baking sheet.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you are making balls of dough that are around 2 tablespoons of dough, you should get roughly 2 dozen cookies.
Yes! If I want to ensure we have some cookies for the cookie jar, I’ll double the recipe. The first batch is usually gone within minutes, the second batch gets popped into an airtight container for later.
I would highly recommend using a wire rack. It helps the cookies cool without getting soggy from steam. I have this wire rack and love it!
You can use any size baking sheet! This is my favorite cookie sheet to use. They produce a great even bake.
I’m sure you could mix them by hand, but I prefer to use my trusty Kitchenaid mixer with the paddle attachment.
If you don’t have this handy cookie scoop, get one! It’s one of my most used kitchen gadgets.
I’ve never used a rolling pin or cookie cutters on this recipe. I’m not sure the dough would be firm enough.
More baking recipes:
Are you looking for more delicious baking recipes? Here are a few of my favorites:
Soft Lemon Sugar Cookie
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Baking Sheet
- Cookie Scoop
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar packed (light or brown works fine)
- 1 1/2 sticks butter 12 tablespoons, softened
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 2-4 tbsp lemon juice if you want the lemon to stand out, use 4 tablespoons. If you want a more subtle amount, use 2-3 tbsp.
- 2 1/2 cup flour all purpose
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp cornstarch
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- In a large bowl, whisk together brown and white sugars until well-combined. Cream in the butter on low speed until fluffy.
- Mix in your vanilla extract, egg and lemon juice.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cornstarch. Add the dry ingredients into the bowl with the wet ingredients.
- Mix on medium speed until fully combined. Make sure not to over-mix.
- Roll 2 tablespoons of dough into a ball and place on your baking sheet. Leave 2 inches between each ball to prevent overspreading.
- Bake for around 10-13 minutes. Bake the cookies until the edges are golden and the center of the cookies still look undercooked.
- Leave the cookies on the baking sheet to cool for 5 minutes. They will finish cooking these last few minutes out of the oven.
- Remove the cookies from the baking sheet and place on a cooling rack.
These look amazing!
Generally, I am not a fan of blogger recipes because one has to read through too much blather to get to the recipe. Nothing can change that opinion. I do not have that kind of time. Sweet of you to share, but…. However, your Soft Lemon Sugar Cookie recipe came up when I googled that I had “12 tablespoons of butter and wanted a cookie recipe and had 35 minutes to make and bake something.”
Thanks! It is a good recipe, although — no fault of yours — I think it needs a Eureka lemon juice fix rather that my Meyer juice. Just not a strong enough a lemon flavor. Maybe that would be a helpful hint and it might just be in the preface to the recipe, but I didn’t have time to get through that. Thank you!
These looks so yummy! How much vanilla extract do you use?
Oops! Just added it into the recipe! 1 teaspoon of vanilla 🙂
Perfect! Thank you! They are in the oven right now! 😋