I have to confess…
As much as I love making homemade cookies entirely from scratch (which is what I do about 95% of the time), on occasion I still seriously enjoy a good cake-mix cookie. I know…judge away… :) But hey – they’re simple, wonderfully fluffy, and can be mixed up in just three minutes. Definitely a nice back-up dessert, especially when you’re short on time!
One of my favorites, that is also most requested from friends, are these simple lemon cookies. They’re made with a basic cake mix recipe, but kicked up a notch with some fresh lemon juice and peel – yum. Feel free to roll them in sugar, glaze them (as explained in the tip below), or just cook and eat them plain. I guarantee they won’t last long. :)
Easy Lemon Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 (18.25 oz) package lemon cake mix
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- juice of half a lemon (about 1 Tbsp.)
- zest of half a lemon (about 1 tsp.)
- 1/3 cup powdered sugar for decor (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Pour cake mix into a large bowl. Stir in eggs, oil, lemon juice and zest until well blended. Form dough into small balls (about 1 Tbsp.), and drop into a bowl of confectioners’ sugar. Roll them around until they’re lightly covered. Once sugared, place on a lightly-greased cookie sheet.
- Bake for 6 to 9 minutes in the preheated oven. The bottoms will be light brown, and the insides chewy.
- **To get a rounder, fluffier cookie, let the dough refrigerate at least 30 minutes. (You can also prepare the sugared balls of dough on the cookie sheet, and just refrigerate the sheet for about ten minutes for a similar effect.)
Notes
Did you make this?Let me know how it turned out in the comments below!
Ali’s Tip:
For a fun variation, I’ve also drizzled these with a lemon glaze (instead of rolling in the powdered sugar). Just whisk together about 1 Tbsp. lemon juice (or water) with 3/4 cup powdered sugar, and then drizzle it over the cookies after they have come out of the oven. Let sit for an hour or so for the glaze to firm up.
These are so good and so easy! I’ve made them twice now and my husband and I both love them. I’m going to have to try experimenting with different flavors of cake mix. However, when I made them the 2nd time I used my mixer instead of stirring by hand and it made the dough very soft and harder to work with. In case anyone else thought of using their mixer I’d recommend making the extra effort to mix by hand. Thanks for your blog! It’s great!
hi, I absolutely love lemony sweets and these seem amazing! unfortunately we don’t have instant cake mixes here, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me what ingredients should I use instead! thank you and keep it up!
These were delicious!!! Our family loved them and than I had group of ladies over and several wanted the recipe. This will be something I make again and again and I would love to try the glaze too. Thank you!!!
I just made a double batch of these today to send off to my grandpa, my brother and my friend who’s about to have her third baby. I think I can safely say that they’ll love them!
Thanks for posting!
They look nice and probably taste wonderful. I love lemon, it’s so fresh and sunny.
I make these too…but I think I fold in a container of whip cream. Yummy! I will try your version for super bowl weekend.
These look like just the thing for the winter blues. Like sunshine on a plate!
They turn out so pretty. Who cares if they start in a box? : )
ooooooo yummy! I just happen to have a box of lemon cake mix in the cupboard. Must be fate ;)
I love lemon anything, so this is for me. I can just imagine eating these with a cup of tea. I’ll be making these tomorrow.