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.
Wanted to try this lemon cookie first before making them for a housewarming party in a week or so – they were superb. I did have to add 2 T. of all purpose flour to the dough prior to rolling it in the powdered sugar. I live in an area with high elevation and always seem to have to add a tad more flour – worked perfectly without messing with the lemony flavor. Also had to add 5 extra minutes to bake time. Wasn’t until after I made them that I saw the hint about getting the dough really cold first – never thought of that. But wanted those who live up in the mtns. to know that an extra couple tablespoons of flour will help bind it to make balls. Think I rolled mine in a little more powdered sugar as they came out more white than yours appeared to be in the photo. Great pictures by the way – very tempting. Love your blog. I’ll have to try the chocolate flavored ones- husband will LOVE those I’m sure. Thanks!
I made these with the addition of lime zest and lime juice and they came out pretty good. I think I added too much lime but they were still tasty.
These are by far one of the best tasting cookies ever! Everyone I make them for falls head over heels for them! I was wondering if you have ever made them with lime juice/zest instead of the lemon for lemon lime cookies? It sounded good to me!
Hi Samantha, I’ve never done the lime thing, but if you love lime go for it, I’m sure it would be great!
I am making these with the lime addition tonight! I will let you know how they turn out!
Hi Michelle,
Maybe I missed it but I was wondering if you could tell me about how many cookies this recipe makes?
Hi Amber, This makes about 30 cookies.
Do you think it would work to add blueberries to batter, or would that mess with the consistency? I’m trying to find some form of lemon/blueberry cookies for a friend’s bday present, and this recipe looks gorgeous.
LOVE the blog!
Hi Rachel, I would use dried blueberries; fresh ones would add too much moisture to the cookies. Sounds delicious!
Dried blueberries are a GREAT idea!
Sue
These were delicious! I made them for Christmas this year and everyone loved them!
So I am really interested in trying these beautiful cookies but I just tried making their chocolate counterpart last night–forming the cookies was such a disaster! I gave up after awhile and ate the rest of the dough by myself. They wound up delicious but the batter is too thin for me to form clean rounds which I can roll in the powdered sugar. Any tips on how to form them to be as pretty as yours?
Molly, I’ve made these a few times now, and I found that I HAVE to chill the dough. Because I was in such a rush, my dough only got a couple of hours chill time, but I returned the unformed dough to the fridge in between reloading the cookie sheets.
If you’re in a rush, put the cookie dough/batter in a freezer safe dish, stash it in the freezer for about 30 minutes and work from the outside of the dish towards the inside and return the dough to the freezer in between.
Good luck, I hope this helps you a bit. These cookies are definitely worth the wait.
Thank you so much! I chilled these in the freezer for about an hour and they rolled relatively cleanly and i now have beautiful lemon cookies. Wonderful suggestions/blog in general! :)
Happy to help, just my own personal experiences. :-)
I whipped up a batch of these for my daughter to take to a cookie exchange party. She was driving in that same day and didn’t have time to bake the cookies herself. These cookies were a HUGE hit at the cookie party, everyone LOVED them! The dough is pretty soft, so I chilled them for a couple of hours before I made balls and rolled them in the powdered sugar. They are just so pretty and the texture is perfect!
I would usually say, “If it’s not chocolate, why bother,” but in this case it’s lemon. After chocolate, I love lemon anything,sweets, meats, soup, anything. This is a great simple, company’s halfway throught the door recipe. Thnx
These just popped up as I was looking at today’s post, and anything lemon catches my eye! My mom used to make them (minus the tweaking) back when the recipe made its debut on the back of Duncan Hines cake mix boxes. I was sent many batches of these little lemon delights back in my college days in the seventies – Mom thought it was so clever to use the cake mix for cookies! Will make these and travel down memory lane and think of my Mom, thanks so much for the memory.
Aw, what a great memory, thank you for sharing Paula! Enjoy the cookies!
These are great – I made them for a BBQ and everyone loved them. Thanks!
I baked these up last night! They have a perfect texture, and taste great! Thanks!
I love love love lemon and these cookies look adorable. Thanks!
Hi Michelle!
We’ve featured your lemon burst cookies these week on http://www.canigettherecipe.com as we discussed and do they ever look fabulous! Thanks again!!!
I made these over Christmas and they were a huge hit…as a matter of fact, they were the favorite! I can’t believe how refreshing and light they are…the lemon zest and juice (I used freshly squeezed) made for a truly amazing cookie. thanks for sharing!
Hi Hiratana,
Thank you for the comment; I’m so thrilled to hear that you enjoy my site! As far as the cookies go, the formulation for the recipe is built on the cookie mix, but you could certainly try it with the chocolate mix and make chocolate cookies, adding in some chocolate chips. And tiramisu cookies sound like they would be divine!
Hi!
I must say that I really love your recipes! In fact I have already done some of them to my friends and they just loved them ! I really wanted to do the lemon burst cookies too but unfortunetly where I live they don’t have lemon cake mix(there was only chocolate and tiramisu :(). I was wondering if you could tell me what I could replace it with? pleaseee ^^
Hi Jessica – You could definitely substitute orange in this recipe; I hope you enjoy them! Let me know how they turn out!
I’ll admit, these do look good. I’ve never made cake mix cookies. Like you, I prefer to make things from scratch. But I love lemon and I love simple cookies, so I think I need to give these a try.
WOW!! Do you think I can try these with oranges/satsumas? They’re an abundance in my backyard!
I love your blog!!! I make a version of these that only calls for 4 oz cool whip, 1 egg and a box of cake mix (any flavor). Lemon cake mix is probably my favorite, and I like to add some lemon zest to the dough to amp up the lemon. I’ve made DOZENS of variations, including spice cake mix with finely chopped candied ginger mixed in. Everyone loves my semi-homemade cookies and can never believe it when I tell them how easy they are!
Michelle, these look superb, like little explosions of lemon. Fantastic!
Rosie of Books And Bakes
Pret a Gourmet – Thanks for stopping back with a review. Your vanilla version sounds fabulous! And for such a great cause! Glad to hear they were a hit :)
These cookies are great! I just made a batch for a breast cancer fund raiser bake sale. I used a white “french vanilla” cake mix, sub 2 tsp vanilla extract instead of the lemon and a couple of drops of red food color. This might be the fastest, easiest cookie recipe ever! Everyone loved them. Thanks for posting it!
I have seen these “crinkle” type cookies made with chocolate and with strawberry cake mix but never with lemon. These definitely sound delicious.
Ooo yum these look awesome! I’ve made chocolate crackles before which look just like this but obviously are dark brown/black.
Stunning pics!
I’ve been wanting to try a recipe like this…your cookies look so beautiful!!!
I made those last night and they are so moist and lemony. I was worried because the batter was a bit on the runny side, but it turned out perfect. Yum
Those look wonderful, like a burst of sunshine :) How simple too!