Why It Works
- Rubbing the lemon zest with sugar helps release the fragrant oil in the peel, producing a more robust lemon flavor in the cookies.
- Chilling the cookie dough allows the flour to hydrate, producing cookies with better structure and a deeper flavor.
- Freezing the shaped cookies briefly before baking helps solidify the fat in the butter, preventing excessive spreading when the cookies are baked.
Along with peppermint, bright, zesty lemon is an essential flavor of the holidays for me. I typically spend Christmas at my mom’s in Louisiana and she has a lemon tree in her yard, which means her freezer is almost always stocked with frozen lemon juice, ready to be used in her fantastic lemon icebox pies and lemon bars. My whole family loves lemon desserts, and this year I have another sweet to add to our repertoire: these bright-tasting lemon sugar cookies created by our Birmingham-based test kitchen colleague Jasmine Smith. The cookies are buttery sweet, but not cloyingly so like some sugar cookies, thanks to the punch of bright citrus flavor.
Serious Eats / Robby Lozano
Most lemon desserts lack bold citrus flavor and just aren’t lemony enough—but Jasmine solves that issue by using lemon juice and zest in the cookie dough, and incorporating the citrus juice into the glaze that tops the cookies, which she then garnishes with even more zest. To further enhance the fruit’s flavor, she rubs the zest with sugar, which helps draw out the rind’s oils, releasing their bright, citrusy flavor and aroma. (It’s a trick we employ in lots of our recipes, including Genevieve’s lemon curd and Daniel’s spicy chile lemonade.) She also rolls the cookie dough log in some of the lemon zest–sugar mixture before slicing and baking, which gives the cookie edges a wonderful lemony crunch. Because you’ll use juice and zest in multiple stages in this recipe, I recommend starting by zesting and juicing all the lemons called for. If you have juice or zest leftover, just use it to make something else (this simple lemon vinaigrette, for example).
Another tried-and true baking technique Jasmine employs in these tender, citrusy cookies is refrigerating the dough after rolling it into logs. Refrigerating the dough allows the flour to fully hydrate, which gives the final cookies better structure. Keeping the dough cold also helps keep the cookies from spreading in the oven. Meanwhile, as the dough rests, enzymes break down large carbohydrates, which in turn produces more flavorful cookies, as former Serious Eats culinary director and science nerd Kenji notes in his chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Serious Eats / Robby Lozano
After resting in the fridge, the cookies are sliced and placed on a baking sheet, then transferred to the freezer for a quick chill. This time in the freezer helps prevent the cookies from spreading too much as they bake and produces nice, neat circular cookies.
For a final flourish after baking, you’ll spread the cookies with a simple glaze of powdered sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla, then top them with additional lemon zest. It’s an easy, tangy, and good looking cookie that would be welcome at a holiday cookie swap or party. Personally, I can just picture a plate of them alongside a cup of tea in my mom’s backyard on a sunny day in South Louisiana.
Editor’s Note
This recipe was developed by Jasmine Smith. The headnote was written by Megan O. Steintrager.
