Lemon Crinkle Cookies
If you love thick, cakey cookies, then you’ll love these lemon crinkle cookies! Made with just a few simple ingredients — including boxed cake mix — this is an easy cookie recipe to make for any occasion that everyone is sure to love.
The Easiest Cookies You’ll Ever Make
If you like lemon, then you will love these cookies. Moreover, if you love quick recipes that you mix together in one bowl with one spoon and can enjoy fresh from the oven in less than 20 minutes, then definitely keep reading!
This is one of the easiest recipes I have ever encountered. You may have seen a version of this recipe before consisting of a cookie recipe based on a box cake mix. Often called crinkle cookies, there have been variations floating around the Internet for nearly 20 years now.
While I love baking from scratch, I also love to have a quick shortcut in my back pocket for those days when I need to throw something delicious together in a hurry. Safe to say these lemon crinkle cookies fit the bill!
Why I Love These Cookies
Taking a bite into these lemon cookies and you truly get a “burst” of lemon. The lemon cake mix is augmented with lemon zest, lemon juice, AND lemon extract. If you wanted to spice things up a bit, you could also substitute limoncello for the lemon juice in the recipe. (My kind of cookie!)
These lemon crinkle cookies, not surprisingly, have a soft and cakey texture. Rolling them in powdered sugar provides a perfect balance to the tartness of the lemon. They would be a wonderful addition to a brunch spread, wedding, baby shower, or afternoon tea.
Key Ingredients
You only need seven ingredients to make these delicious and easy lemon cookies. (And I’d bet you have most of them in your kitchen right now!)
- One box of store-bought lemon cake mix (your preferred brand)
- Two eggs (at room temperature)
- Vegetable oil
- Zest of two lemons
- Fresh lemon juice
- Lemon extract
- Confectioner’s sugar
How To Make These Crinkle Cookies
- Prep: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Make the Dough: Pour the lemon cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, and lemon extract until well blended. (It’s OK to see some small lumps or streaks of flour.)
- Prepare the Cookies: Place confectioner’s sugar in a bowl. Then, roll a heaping tablespoonfuls of dough into a ball in your hands, drop in the bow of confectioner’s sugar, and gently roll it around until it’s lightly coated. Place on baking sheet, and repeat with remaining dough.
- Bake: Once all of the dough is coated in the powdered sugar, bake them for 10 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool for 2-3 minutes on the cookie sheet, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Serve: I love serving these lemon cookies with hot tea or cold milk. They’re best fresh from the oven. Enjoy!
Prepare the lemon crinkle cookie dough by combining dry and wet ingredients. Roll balls of the cookie dough in powdered sugar before baking.
Storage, Freezing, and Reheating Instructions
- Store cooled cookies in an airtight container or plastic bag at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Freeze baked and cooled lemon cookies in an airtight, freezer-safe container or plastic bag for up to 1 month. You can also freeze the raw dough already rolled into balls and coated in powdered sugar for up to 3 months.
- Reheat baked cookies from frozen by simply allowing them to come to room temperature, or bake the frozen dough for the same cooking temperature and time as before, but with the ability to cook longer if needed (potentially 5-7 extra minutes). Or let the dough thaw overnight in the refrigerator before baking.
Tips for Success
- Do not over-mix your batter. Just like with traditional cake recipes, you don’t want to beat the eggs too much and risk making these cakey cookies too dense. We want them to be light and fluffy.
- If you want more lemon flavor, add some extra lemon zest to the powdered sugar before baking or garnish the cooked cookies with some zest before serving.
- Change up the citrus! You can make these cookies with any citrus juice and zest. Oranges, limes, or Meyer lemons would be great. But stick with the lemon extract.
- Garnish with a lemon glaze to take these lemon cookies up a notch! Simply mix together powdered sugar and lemon juice until it’s a thick, but spreadable, consistency, and drizzle over the cookies once they’ve cooled.
More Cookie Recipes To Try
- Black and White Cookies
- Copycat Lofthouse Cookies
- Snowball Cookies
- Cowboy Cookies
- Super Soft and Chewy M&M Cookies
- Nutella Cookies
Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 box (517.38 g) lemon cake mix
- 2 eggs
- ⅓ cup (72.67 ml) vegetable oil
- Zest of 2 lemons
- 2 tablespoons (2 Tablespoons) lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) lemon extract
- ⅓ cup (40 g) confectioner’s sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
- Pour cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and lemon extract until well blended.
- Place confectioner's sugar in a bowl.
- Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of dough into balls and roll in confectioner's sugar until lightly coated and place on baking sheet.
- Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool for 2-3 minutes on the cookie sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Store cooled cookies in an airtight container or plastic bag at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Freeze baked and cooled lemon cookies in an airtight, freezer-safe container or plastic bag for up to 1 month. You can also freeze the raw dough already rolled into balls and coated in powdered sugar for up to 3 months.
- Reheat baked cookies from frozen by simply allowing them to come to room temperature, or bake the frozen dough for the same cooking temperature and time as before, but with the ability to cook longer if needed (potentially 5-7 extra minutes). Or let the dough thaw in the refrigerator overnight before baking.
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
Photography by Dee Frances.
I had made these back in 2017 when cake mixes were still about the stated size, and wanted to repeat them now in 2025. As I don’t use cake mixes regularly I didn’t want the route of buy 2 and add enough from the second to reach the recipe weight, so I did the math: if you use 2 375 g./13.25 oz cake mixes (mine were Betty Crocker) you are making 1.5x the stated recipe. (Well, 1.45x, close enough.)
So: 3 eggs, 3 lemons, a scant 3 T. lemon juice, a scant 3/4 tsp lemon extract, and 60 g. confectioners sugar. Worked great, and there are more cookies!
I’m a big believer that really good food takes hard work and doing things “for real,” so I’m always skeptical of “shortcut” recipes that use stuff like box mix cake, powdered beverages, etc. Every cake mix cookie I’ve ever had was dry and sad. With ALL that being said – these are GREAT!! Strong lemon flavor, balanced sweetness, great chewy and soft texture. The dough is a little hard to handle after mixing, so either pop it in the fridge to firm up, or be very careful when tossing it in the sugar (way easier to handle once coated in the sugar). I made 19 cookies and baked for just shy of 9 minutes.
I found the dough to be very hard to handle. Should have refrigerated it for awhile. Otherwise they are easy and delicious. Thanks BEB!!
These look and sound amazing!! I would love to ship them to my Grandma (she’s 92)! She taught me how to bake my first cookie… She is hosting Easter and does not bake anymore. My question is – do you think these will ship well? (about a 3 day trip). Also, would the lovely white powder sugar coating dissolve before it arrived? If you do not recommend shipping these cookies, do you have any cookie/treat recipes that do ship well? I LOVE everything of yours I have tried and hope to send some sweet love to my Gma. :0)
I made these today and they are delicious. I made 2 adjustments because of the reduced box size of 432g. I used 61 ml of oil and 5 Tsp of lemon juice. I also refrigerated the batter for an hour. Worked great!
I added about 1 cup of rough chopped raw cranberries for a Christmas cookie and they turned out amazing. Thank you!
Hello Michelle,
I would love to make lemon crinkle cookies. Unfortunately, the cake mix is not being sold here.
Will you also present a recipe to make this cookie from scratch?
Keep up the great work.