EASY LEMON COOKIES RECIPE.

Jump to Recipe

An easy lemon cookie recipe that requires very few readily available ingredients and is easy to prep and bake. Lemon cookies are easily the best dessert for lemon lovers to satisfy a sweet tooth. These cookies are perfect for indulging with a cup of tea or a glass of milk.

This recipe will yield entirely crunchy, delicious lemon cookies.

To make perfectly crunchy cookies, both the ingredients used and their ratios are of importance. In addition, the size of the cookies, baking time and the storage method come into play. First, let us explore the ingredients.

Ingredients.

Granulated sugar. Used as a sweetener. To make lemon cookies get that intense lemon tang, mix the sugar with the zest of lemons, and pulse in a food processor. Or mix sugar with the zest of lemons and let it sit for a few minutes. Sugar is hygroscopic and will absorb the liquid from the zest.

zest of lemon.

All-purpose flour.

Unsalted butter. Unsalted butter is the best to use in baking since it is easy to control the amount of salt. Shortening works well but you will be missing that delicious richness of butter. In addition, the texture might slightly change if you substitute shortening for butter. This is because butter has a lower melting point than shortening. Therefore, a cookie baked with butter spreads more compared to a cookie baked with shortening.

Eggs. The liquid ingredient helps combine the other ingredients. Eggs are also a source of moisture for the cookies and also act as leavening agents. However, too many eggs will result in cakey and softer cookies while the reverse is true.

Salt.

Baking soda. Enables cookies to spread during baking.

Tips that Ensure Lemon cookies remain crunchy.

STORAGE. When cookies are poorly stored, they get appallingly soft and sticky. What happens is, the sugar in the cookies is hygroscopic, and it will absorb moisture from the air hence this outcome. To avoid this, completely wrap cookies with parchment paper, and place them in an airtight plastic container. In addition, ensure cookies are completely cooled before storage.

TYPE OF SUGAR USED. Brown sugar makes cookies soft and chewy due to molasses, so avoid this when going for entirely crunchy cookies. In addition, sugar is hygroscopic as discussed above, and this may make cookies go soft over time. The best kind of sugar for crunchy cookies are those that are highly refined. Examples are castor sugar, powdered sugar or granulated sugar.

AMOUNT OF LIQUID INGREDIENTS. Mostly, the liquid ingredient in most cookies is eggs. Eggs add moisture and structure to cookies. An egg has two constituents, the yolk and the white. The egg yolk is primarily responsible for moisture while the white acts as a combining and leavening agent. In conclusion, when making crunchy cookies use egg whites while avoiding yolks. This is why most shortbread cookie recipes don’t use eggs at all.

BAKE TIME. Let cookies bake a little longer, slowly, at low temperatures to make them more crunchy.

Related Recipes.

• Lemon passion loaf cake.
• Orange chocolate cupcakes.
• Vanilla Butter cookies.
• Caramelized white chocolate cookies.