Lemon Crinkle Cookies
These Lemon Crinkle Cookies are not only tastefully delicious and super simple to make, but they are gorgeous as well. Grab a handful of ingredients and get to baking with your family tonight!
There is nothing as magical as finding a simple base recipe you can easily customize until you are blue in the face. Bonus points if it’s inexpensive and the holy grail if you can memorize it after one run through and never need to look at the recipe again. With this Lemon Crinkle Cookies recipe, you are getting just that because it starts with a boxed cake mix. (My favorite!)
If you are not familiar with cake-mix cookies, you are about to feel like you just won the cookie lottery. Cake-Mix cookies are fun and flirty, super quick and easy to whip up, and they taste like grandma spent all day making them. But the most absolutely fun part of cake-mix cookies is that you could easily spend a year of your life thinking of new cake-mix cookie combinations.
Happen to have a chocolate cake mix, some maraschino cherries, and s bit of chocolate on hand? You can quickly make cake-mix cookies out of that.
Love spice cake and raisins? You can make a cake-mix cookie out of that.
Strawberry cake and a Kool-Aid packet? YES YOU CAN.
Once you realize the base of the recipe (box of cake mix, oil, and egg) stays the same, you can free your mind to be creative and work with what you have on hand or play until you find your favorites.
Our favorites are these Lemon Crinkle Cookies. These have a light lemon flavor but you can easily amp up the lemon by adding in the juice and zest from a whole lemon or by swapping out the white cake mix for a lemon cake mix. If you are a real lemon lover, you can do both!
If you don’t want to think about squeezing lemons or grating the peel, lemon extract or even a lemon Kool-Aid packet will work too, but just note that the flavor will be less authentically lemon – not bad, just different! This flexible recipe is one of many reasons it’s a total keeper, so be bold and have fun mixing things up!
Alternative ways to make these Lemon Crinkle Cookies
- For an extra decadent cookie, mix white chocolate chips into your batter. Mmmmm …
- Lemon Crinkle Cookies would be extra lemon-tastic drizzled or dipped in an icing made using icing (confectioner’s) sugar and lemon juice. Pucker! If going this route, just skip the bits in the recipe about rolling them in the sugars before baking.
- Tuck some frosting between two Lemon Crinkle Cookies and make sandwich cookie heaven! Try a cream cheese, lemon, or berry frosting in the middle, or go with a simple white or buttercream.
- If you don’t have enough icing sugar on hand to roll these babies in but you do have a little, you can simply dust the tops of the cookies with what you have once they’ve cooled. Or, here’s an extra crazy thought, skip the rolling sugars altogether and have them plain! (A shout out to all the purists out there!)
Cake-Mix Cookie Tips
- Chill the dough for between an hour and a day if you have the time. Chilling the dough will make it easier to work with, in general. If you don’t have the time, toss the dough in the freezer for about ten minutes to firm it up.
- Use a cookie scoop or even a melon baller to avoid having cake-mix cookie hands.
- Let cake-mix cookies help make feeding a crowd, fundraising activities, and cookie exchanges easier (and cheaper)!
Enjoy!
Lemon Crinkle Cookies Ingredients
- 1 white cake mix
- 2 eggs
- ⅓ cup oil
- Zest of half a lemon
- Yellow gel food coloring
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar in a small bowl
- ⅓ cup icing sugar in a small bowl
How to Make Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Step #1: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Step #2: Stir your cake mix, eggs, and oil. Once thoroughly combined, add lemon zest and fold.
Step #3: Add 1 to 2 small drops of food coloring and stir.
Step #4: Once everything is mixed together, roll into 1-1.5 inch spheres and coat with granulated sugar. Then coat with icing sugar. Place on lined baking sheet, about 2 inches apart from one another.
Step #5: Bake for 8 to 10 minutes and cool on rack. Enjoy!
Other Cookie Recipes You’ll Enjoy:
- Smores Cookie Bars
- Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
- Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies
- Magic Bars
- Mini Apple Pie Cups with Sugar Cookie Dough
View our entire Cookie Recipe Collection now!
Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 white cake mix
- 2 eggs
- ⅓ cup oil
- Zest of half a lemon
- Yellow gel food coloring
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar in a small bowl
- ⅓ cup icing sugar in a small bowl
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Stir your cake mix, eggs, and oil. Once thoroughly combined, add lemon zest and fold.
- Add 1 to 2 small drops of food coloring and stir.
- Once everything is mixed together, roll into 1-1.5 inch spheres and coat with granulated sugar. Then coat with icing sugar. Place on lined baking sheet, about 2 inches apart from one another.
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes and cool on rack. Enjoy!
