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
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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.
You are such a talented women! Lovely pictures and fantastic recipe. Thank you so much for sharing.
I don’t bake much but wow! do I love these cookies!!! Thanks for sharing it. See ya around Foodbuzz.
wow, lemon cake mix, lemon zest, lemon juice, lemon extract, i could feel the lemon fragrance here!
sounds like lemon burst & looks like sun burst. Just the look of it uplifted my mood.
Hi Kokotaru,
I think you could probably take a butter or sugar cookie recipe and add the lemon zest, juice and extract to it for a lemon cookie. I would probably use the same amounts as are listed in this recipe and then scale up depending on how the first batch comes out and how strong you like your lemon baked goods. I hope that helps!
Oh how pretty…what a burst of sunshine!
I have a friend who loves lemon. I’ll have to send her your way for this recipe :)
Those are some beautiful cookies! The insides look wonderfully cake-like and moist.
What an amazing colour these cookies have! I love the idea of using the cake mix as a base, especially when you get such delicious looking results :)
Hi there, I love your cookies and I really want to try making them. I just wonder that I don’t have a ready cake mix package, can I do with the normal cake flour plus baking powder / baking soda/ salt and can you suggest the proportion? Thanks a lot :)
These look great!
Cake mixes can really come in handy when you want home baked cookies in a hurry. And with all the natural, organic, and gluten free cake mix options, they are becoming better for you all the time. Your lemon cookies look luscious.
oh totally fun!! they are SO YELLOW!! hehe, they sound delicious to me! And I love any recipe that you can make in one bowl!
Lemon is one of my favorite flavors and I love being able to take store bought cake mix and make it my own.
My mum used to bake these when I was little!
I love lemon, and these look perfectly cheerful for the rainy, gloomy weather we’ve had lately.
I have seen these before, they look so pretty! I usually don’t use mixes, but I just might for these:)
These look lovely!
Wow that’s so neat to use cake mix! I bet you could use any kind of cake mix and just substitute the extract/juice.
I need to make me some Cherry Chip ones!
I love lemon. These look and sound wonderful!
Yum! I love a quick cookie recipe when I’m in a pinch.
These look crazy good!
These are so pretty!
They really look like they are bursting with lemon flavour – what an interesting and easy looking recipe – just my type :)
Wow, these look and sound delicious! I just love anything lemon and can’t wait to try them!
I absolutely love lemon so I’m definitely intrigued! I’ll have to try and remember to pick up a lemon cake mix when I’m at the store so I can try these out!
OMG those look so good! I love a great lemon cookie!
Ohh I’m so glad you liked these! I had the same reaction to using a boxed mix, but when augmented with the extra lemon, it definitely brightens up the flavor and makes it taste more “real.” Yours came out beautifully, I love the powdered sugar crust.
I’ve seen these! I’m like you in that I get into that thinking where everything is better made from scratch, but it doesn’t hurt on the days when you want something, and it really doesn’t taste horribly, either. So pretty, too!
These are so good! I’ve had a recipe for the chocolate version using cake mix and I decided to mix it up and try the lemon cake mix and man they were the perfect blend of sweet and tart.
Your pics are beautiful!!