Chewy Lemon Cookies

MY BEST PICTURE

STORY

I love lemon flavored things. Lemon cookies, lemon bars, lemon drop martinis, the lemonade girl scout cookies, lemonade…. okay I’ll stop! My roommate in college and I baked lemon cookies and they were amazing! Since then, I have perfected a chewy, soft, lemon vanilla cookie.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup salted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (roughly 1 lemon worth of juice)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar (dough was rolled in this prior to baking)

HOW I BAKED THEM

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees F. I set aside 3 non-stick cookie sheets. I used a fine grater to zest the lemon, and before I started to mix anything, I grated the lemon zest over an empty bowl and squeezed out the lemon juice in a separate bowl. I also put the powdered sugar onto a paper plate plate and set aside. I have learned over time that getting this step out of the way is best!

I took my stick of butter and put it in the microwave for about 15 seconds just to get it soft. I beat the butter and the sugar together with an electric hand mixer until it was a nice smooth consistency. Next, I beat in the vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and lemon juice. I made sure this was beat until it was evenly combined. I always scrape the sides of the bowl when I am baking to make sure I am mixing everything!

Then I stirred in all of the dry ingredients (excluding the powdered sugar) to my batter until it is just evenly combined. Lastly, I grabbed about a tablespoon of cookie dough and rolled it into a ball, and I rolled my ball of dough around the powdered sugar until it is completely covered. I repeated this until I have about 18 dough balls. I placed these on a baking. Quick and easy.

I baked the cookies for about 9 minutes, and recognized that they were still a little gooey. So I left them in for an additional 2 minutes and they were perfect. These cookies are meant to be soft and chewy, and that is what I achieved!

MY HONEST OPINION

I absolutely love these cookies! They may or may not be my favorite cookie. They are soft, chewy, and delicious. If you’re not a lemon dessert fan, I still recommend trying these cookies because they do not have an overbearing lemon taste!

WHAT I WOULD TRY NEXT TIME

I would like to try putting a glaze over these cookies, or perhaps making a vanilla bean cream cheese frosting for the top of the cookies.