Our Lemon Cookies with Lemon Frosting are delicious buttery, cakey cookies with just a hint of lemon covered with our creamy, lemony buttercream frosting.

Closeup on a stack of Lemon Cookies with Lemon Frosting laying on a white surface.

We love our The Best Lemon Buttercream Frosting so much and we knew that we needed to come up with more things to frost with it … our first attempt was a huge success!  These Lemon Cookies with Lemon Frosting are super delicious – buttery, cakey cookies with just a hint of lemon covered with our creamy, lemony buttercream frosting. These cookies would make a great dessert for Easter, Mother’s Day, a Spring Brunch or just as a special treat for the lemon-lover in your family. Bright and fresh and super tasty … we hope you like them as much as we do.

Ingredients You Will Need

All the ingredients you will need to make Lemon Cookies including lemons, lemon frosting, lemon juice, lemon zest, flour, powdered sugar, butter, eggs, milk, baking soda, salt and white chocolate.

How to Prepare the Lemons

Closeup on a Lemon Juicer filled with lemon juice sitting in front of a microplane that has been used to make lemon zest.

Step 1: Squeeze two fresh lemons – you will need 1/4 cup of lemon juice for the cookie dough.  (You’ll also need another 1/4 cup for The Best Lemon Buttercream Frosting so you can do that now too. Use the lemon peels to create 3 heaping tablespoons of lemon zest.  You’ll use 2 tablespoons in the cookie dough and 1 tablespoon in the lemon frosting.

Closeup of a clear bowl filled with the Lemon Cookie dough and a yellow spatula.

Step 2: In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs and mix until incorporated. Mix in the lemon juice, lemon zest, and Half n’ Half. Mix in the baking soda and salt.  Finally, mix in the flour.  We added a drop of yellow food coloring to enhance the lemon color of the cookies.  Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

Baking Instructions

Collage image showing the Lemon Cookies before going into the oven and just coming out of the oven.

Step 3: Roll the dough into balls and slightly flatten them as shown in the picture above.
Step 4: Bake the cookies in a 350-degree oven for 9-10 minutes and completely cool.

Frosting the Cookies

Closeup on a clear bowl filled with homemade Lemon Buttercream Frosting sitting in front of a bowl filled with fresh lemons.

Step 5: Make up a batch of our delicious The Best Lemon Buttercream Frosting. You can find the recipe and detailed instructions on how to make it right here.

Collage image showing how to frost the Lemon Cookies with Lemon Butter Cream Frosting and a drizzle of White Chocolate.

Step 6: Gather up your cooled cookies and the The Best Lemon Buttercream Frosting.
Step 7: Generously frost each lemon cookie with the lemon frosting.
Step 8: Melt White Chocolate Melting Wafers in a plastic baggie in the microwave.  Start at 30 seconds and then keep microwaving in 10 second increments until the chocolate is melted.  Cut a small opening in the corner of the plastic bag.  Drizzle the White Chocolate over the lemon frosting for a little extra bit of decoration!
Step 9:  Allow the frosting and the White Chocolate drizzles to firm up before storing the cookies.

Expert Tips and FAQS

Use Room Temperature Ingredients

Both the eggs and the butter should be at room temperature which will help your cookies turn out lighter and fluffier.  For the eggs, room temperature simply means not cold out of the refrigerator. If you forget to take the eggs out before you start making cookie dough you can put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to warm them up.  The butter also needs to be softened to room temperature which means if you touch it you should leave an indentation on the stick of butter. Do not use butter that has been over-softened or melted.  If that happens you should use a different stick of butter or put it back into the refrigerator to let it set up.  We have a whole post about How to Soften Butter, click here if you need more information on how to do that.

Do you need to use a Mixer?

Yes.  In our opinion, you need some kind of a mixer to make a good cookie dough.  A stand mixer, while expensive, is a great investment if you believe you have a lot of homemade baked goods in your future.  An electric hand-mixer also works well and you can probably find one for around $20.  You can hand mix cookie dough in a pinch (which is how we did it growing up), but you will really have to use a lot of muscle to cream the butter and sugar and eggs properly.  

Cookie Dough Mixing Tips

Creaming the butter, sugar and then mixing the eggs in is the most important part of the cookie dough mixing process. Creaming is when you fully incorporate the butter and sugar together and add some much needed air to the dough. We recommend creaming the butter and sugar for 2 minutes on medium-high speed and then mixing the butter/sugar/eggs for another 3 minutes at the same speed. Once you add the flour, you want to mix the dough as little as possible. Mix it too much and you will get tough cookies. Mix in the flour on low speed and continue mixing ONLY until the dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough. Make sure you scrape down the sides and the bottom to make sure all the flour has gotten mixed in.

Prepping the Cookie Sheet

We always line our cookie sheets with a piece of parchment paper, it keeps the cookie from sticking to the sheet and from over-browning. You can find parchment paper either in rolls or in pre-cut sheets in most grocery stores, and we highly recommend it. Ideally, you should use at least 2 cookie sheets when baking cookies. You don’t want to add the raw cookie dough to a cookie sheet that is hot out of the oven. The dough will start baking even before you get it in the oven.

Oven Tips

Everyone’s oven is different. We recommend starting with a test bake with a single cookie to help you hone in on the exact baking time for your oven. You should set your timer for 2 minutes less than whatever the recipe recommends. Once the timer goes off, open up the oven and see how your cookie is baking. Make corrections accordingly. Our oven has a hot spot in the back so we always rotate the cookie sheet half-way through the baking time to get a more even bake. Although this may seem like an unnecessary step, it is better to do this then burn a whole tray of cookies.

Storage/Freezing Tips

Cookies should always be stored in an airtight container.  They should be completely cooled before storing them. We usually add a layer of parchment paper between each row of cookies in our plastic container.  Cookies stored at room temperature should stay fresh for 3-4 days. You can also keep them in the refrigerator and that extends their freshness for up to a week. If you need them to last longer, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. You can pull them out of the freezer and leave them on the counter for 1 hour and they will be ready to eat.

Close up on a stack of Lemon Cookies with Lemon Frosting, the top cookie has a bit taken out of it.

Other Lemon Dessert Recipes You Will Love

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Lemon Cookies with Lemon Frosting

Yield 24 cookies
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Additional Time 10 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes

Our Lemon Cookies with Lemon Frosting are delicious buttery, cakey cookies with just a hint of lemon covered with our creamy, lemony buttercream frosting.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Butter (Salted, Softened to room temperature)
  • 2 cups Powdered Sugar
  • 2 Large Eggs
  • 1/4 cup fresh Lemon Juice
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons Half n' Half
  • 2 tablespoons Lemon Zest
  • 3 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon Salt
  • The Best Lemon Buttercream Frosting
  • 1/4 cup White Chocolate Melting Wafers
  • Wilton Color Right Food Coloring  - Yellow

Instructions

  1. Squeeze fresh lemons until you have 1/2 cup of lemon juice.  (You will need 1/4 cup for the cookies and another 1/4 cup or The Best Lemon Buttercream Frosting.)
  2. Use the lemon peels to create 3 heaping tablespoons of lemon zest.  (You'll use 2 tablespoons in the cookie dough and 1 tablespoon in the lemon frosting.)
  3. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.
  4. Add the eggs and mix until incorporated.
  5. Mix in the lemon juice, lemon zest and Half n' Half.
  6. Mix in the baking soda and salt.
  7. Finally, mix in the flour.
  8. Add a drop of yellow food coloring to enhance the lemon color of the cookies.
  9. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
  10. Roll the dough into balls and slightly flatten them.
  11. Bake the Lemon Cookies in a 350 degree oven for 9-10 minutes and allow to cool.
  12. Make up a batch of our delicious The Best Lemon Buttercream Frosting.
  13. Frost the Lemon Cookies with The Best Lemon Buttercream Frosting.
  14. Melt White Chocolate Melting Wafers in a plastic baggie in the microwave.  Start at 30 seconds and then keep microwaving in 10 second increments until the chocolate is melted.  Cut a small opening in the corner of the plastic bag.  Drizzle the White Chocolate over the lemon frosting for a little extra bit of decoration!
  15. Allow the frosting and the white chocolate drizzles to setup a bit before you store the cookies.

Notes

Storage Instructions
Cookies should always be stored in an airtight container.  They should be completely cooled before storing them. We usually add a layer of parchment paper between each row of cookies in our plastic container.  Cookies stored at room temperature should stay fresh for 3-4 days. You can also keep them in the refrigerator and that extends their freshness for up to a week. If you need them to last longer, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. You can pull them out of the freezer and leave them on the counter for 1 hour and they will be ready to eat.

Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!