Cream Cheese Lemon Cookies

Cream Cheese Lemon Cookies are soft, thick cookies with the perfect amount of lemon and topped with an easy lemon icing!

Make sure to try out my Lemon Blueberry Whoopie Pies too!

Cream Cheese Lemon Cookies Are Soft, Sweet, and Tart!

I have talked on here time and time again about lemon desserts…no one else in my house will eat them EXCEPT ME! But here we are again, with another insanely delicious lemon cookie recipe. Remember back when I made those Lemonhead Cookies? If you are looking for a more tart-lemony-chewy cookie hop over and make that recipe. If you’re looking for a soft, thick lemon cookie, this is the recipe for you!

This Lemon Cookie Recipe is a Classic!

The combo of butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and lemon make the perfect soft cookie, with a light lemon flavor. If you prefer more lemon you can add more zest (as much as you want, honestly) and instead of using heavy cream in the icing, you can use 1- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice instead! Totally up to you!

Making Lemon Cookies from Scratch is Easy!

The dough for these lemon cookies is very easy! It’s a simple cookie recipe that uses a combo of half cream cheese and half butter. Don’t worry if you don’t like cream cheese, you can’t taste it. The only thing you will want to note before making this cookie recipe, is that the dough really does need to be chilled. It is a sticky dough, and chilling it makes it much easier to roll into balls!

Why Do You Use Cream Cheese in Cookies?

Here’s the deal with baking cookies with cream cheese…like I said before you can’t taste it. But if you can’t taste it, what’s the point, you might be asking?! Well, there are a few reasons to use cream cheese in cookie baking:

1. Baking with cream cheese, or a portion of cream cheese (like in the case) naturally reduces the amount of fat in the cookie…not that I am really looking to do that, it’s just an added bonus.
2. If you do sub in cream cheese for butter, you will need to experiment with bake times, as they can will harden up faster than if you use butter. That is why I stress in this recipe not to over-bake. They can get rather hard if you bake them until they’re golden.
3. Cream cheese works perfectly in this recipe because we are adding lot of lemon flavor. If you sub in cream cheese for butter exclusively your cookies can end up a little bland, which is why I prefer a combo of the two.
4. Cream Cheese in baking also doesn’t spread as much as butter, which is it is a nice addition (or substitution) for cookies where you are looking to get a really thick cookie. They can end up a little more “cakey” than an all-butter cookie, which, again, is why I love the combo of butter and cream cheese!

There’s a Trick To Baking These Lemon Cookies!

So here’s the deal…these are thick cookies, like I said. They’re thick because:

• cream cheese
• chilling the dough
• rolling them into balls before baking

And while I am all about a thick cookie, I don’t want a round ball. SO, these cookies spread a little bit while baking, but the trick is when you take the baking sheet out of the pan, drop it on your counter or stove top a few times from about 6- inches above. Dropping the baking sheet helps settle the cookies, and get rid of any air bubbles inside the cookies that are keeping them tall. This will prevent you lemon cookies from being too cakey. Well, that and not over-baking.

Do You Need To Put Icing On These Cookies?

Well, the short answer is yes. I will always say to add icing. But in this case, I really feel like these cookies benefit from the added sweetness and that extra punch of citrus in the zest you add to the icing! Please feel free to add as little or as much zest as you want!

Can I Use Bottled Lemon Juice Instead of Fresh Lemon Juice?

I am generally not a snobby baker, but in this cream cheese lemon cookies recipe, the answer is only use fresh lemon juice. The reason here, is because you are using fresh lemon zest, which really can’t (or shouldn’t) be omitted. And since you’re already using a fresh lemon, why wouldn’t you want to use the juice too!? Plus, fresh lemon juice just tastes better. You know it’s true.

How Can I Make These Cookie Even MORE Lemony?

There are a few ways you can really amp up the lemon flavor in these cookies:

• Add another tablespoon of lemon zest to the dough. You can get about 1 tablespoon of zest from 1 large lemon.
• Add in lemon extract. Start with 1/2 teaspoon and see how that tastes. If you would like to add more, you can!
• Add in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for 1 tablespoon of heavy cream in the icing.

Tips For Making These Cookies Perfect

You can see these Cream Cheese Lemon Cookies have a soft, tender, and thick texture. They’re really a perfect all around cookie, as long as you follow the steps I mentioned here. BUT for a recap remember:

• Don’t over-bake these cookies! I would even say under-baking will produce better results. The cream cheese in the cookies will cause these to get hard and cakey if over-baked!
• Drop the baking sheet a few times when they come out of the oven to settle the cookies, give them a nice dense texture, and also a pretty, crackly top!
• Use FRESH lemon juice! And…
• Don’t skip the icing!

Hope you make and love these as much as I do.

If you’re looking for more lemon recipes, try these:

1. Lemon Thumbprint Cookies
2. Buttery Lemon Spaghetti
3. Lemon Cream Cheese Bars

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