GranNini's Lemon Crinkle Cookies

GranNini's Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Each year I bake Christmas goodies for all the nice folks at my hubby's office.  Last year's holiday tray of yumminess is pictured below.  The lemon cookies are the 4th from the left.

I promised I would start uploading my recipes of this fabulous deliciousness, so here's the recipe I use for Lemon Crinkle Cookies.

I snagged this recipe off of pinterest several years ago -- can't find the original pin anywhere.  But fortunately I had gone old school, printed it off, and I tweeked the recipe a wee bit.  A very similar recipe can be found here:  Lemon Crinkle Cookie Recipe

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Makes 4 dozen wee little cookies.

If you want bigger, "normal sized" cookies, it'll make less.

Obviously.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (unsalted), softened

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 teaspoons lemon extract

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

¼ baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

3 cups flour

For the Top:

1 Cup powdered sugar, sifted

For the Sprinkles:

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 package (single serving) Crystal Lite lemonade crystals (do not add water)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add in eggs, one at a time, vanilla, lemon extract, lemon juice, and salt.
2. Scrape down the sides of your mixing bowl.  Gently sprinkle in baking powder and soda and allow the mixer to blend those in.  Slowly add in flour.
3. Pour the mixture out onto saran wrap, form into a large ball, cover tightly, and place in the fridge for a few hours (or even overnight!)
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Unwrap the dough, break off into small pieces (about the size of a quarter), and roll into wee tiny little balls.  If you want "normal sized" cookies, feel free to roll into larger sized balls.  Just remember then you'll need to bake them for another minute or two at the end.
6. Pour sifted powdered sugar into a small bowl.  Slowly pop a ball of cookie dough into the powdered sugar and roll it around.  Place the cookies back onto the parchment paper lined cookie trays.  Make sure you leave room between cookies, because these cookies spread a bit.
7. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 9-10 minutes, or until they are no longer shiny.  But don't keep them in too long, or they will brown and become crispy rather than chewy and delicious.
8. Remove from oven, and cool for several minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
9. In a small bowl, mix together granulated sugar with the dry Crystal Light crystals.
10. With your fingers, gently, and very, very lightly, sprinkle a few crystals of Crystal Light lemonade / sugar mixture onto the top of each cookie for a wee bit of added zing.

One item to note, the cookies usually look much prettier than my pictures shows them to be.  This year's picture was done in a bit of a frantic hurry.  The recipe can be halved quite easily, but I have found that the lemon cookies are always a huge hit -- and are a wonderful, tasty alternative to the chocolate-heavy recipes with which I usually fill my trays.

Enjoy!

For those of you who like pictures with your instructions, here you go:

After you've made your dough, let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours, up to overnight.

Using a mini cookie scoop, spoon out balls o'dough.

 Mmmmm.  Balls of dough.  These haven't been rolled yet.  Obvs.

 A whole tray of cookie blobs.  Make sure you space them out a bit, as the cookies will spread.

 I rolled half the blobs so you could see the difference.
It's SO much easier to get consistently sized blobs if you use that magic cookie scoop thingie.
AND, then you don't get cookie dough under your fingernails.
Which is gross.

 All pretty!

I plop my blobs into a bowl of sifted powder sugar.  I put in three blobs at a time.  I roll them around with my fingers.  Then I use a fork to scoop them up, and I put them gently into my hand, and I shake my hand up and down a bit to let the loose powdered sugar to go back into the bowl.  Then I place them back on my parchment paper - lined cookie sheets.

Bake for 9 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

With your fingers, gently sprinkle on a few sprinkles of the sugar / crystal light lemonade crystals onto each cookie.

Allow cookies to cool completely before serving.

Be sure to store in an air-tight container.

Mmmmm, tasty!

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