Published by Sheena Strain, last updated
Recipe
This is a really quick and easy gluten free lemon cookies recipe that will please everyone! My gluten free lemon cookies are really , soft, chewy, and sooo yummy. You can easily leave these cookies as they are and eat them straight out of the oven, or you can make a simple lemon glaze and drizzle that over the top.
Ingredients you’ll need for Gluten Free Lemon Cookies
It’s best to use real lemon juice for this recipe rather than bottled, plus you really don’t want to skip the lemon zest in the recipe as it really is integral to making a really great lemon cookie flavor. Here’s a short list of some of the ingredients you’ll need to make gluten free lemon cookies, the full recipe is at the end of the post.This post contains Amazon affiliate links
- All purpose gluten free flour
- Xanthan gum
- butter, or dairy free margarine
- White sugar
- Eggs
- Lemon zest
- Vanilla extract
How to Make Gluten Free Lemon Cookies
You will need a quality gluten free flour to make these lemon cookies. I prefer to make my owngluten free flour blend, but if you don’t want to do that you can use a quality ready made gluten free flour such as King Arthur’s Gluten Free flour.
I do not recommend blends that have bean flour, they simply don’t taste good, also remember to omit the xanthan gum if your blend already has it. Here’s a couple simple step by step directions, you’ll find the printable recipe at the end of the post.
- Preheat your oven to 325F
- Cream the butter and sugar together until soft. I used dairy free margarine and it’s pretty soft already so I didn’t need to mix it for long.
- Then, Add egg, vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice to the butter and sugar and mix it to combine.
- In another bowl mix the gluten free flour, xanthan gum, and baking powder and whisk it a little to mix.
- Now you just need to add the flour to the butter mixture and mix together until it’s combined well.
- Use a cookie scoop to drop tablespoons of cookie dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet or sheet pan. Flatten the cookies a little with the back of a spoon.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until done. You can dust with a little icing sugar, or glaze with some lemon icing when they are cooled.
How to make a Lemon Glaze
Making a lemon glaze for your gluten free lemon cookies is the easiest thing in the world! Here’s what you need:
- Powdered sugar – 1 cup
- 1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
All you need to do is mix the lemon juice together with the powdered sugar, it will make a thin runny glaze with a wonderful flavor! Then all you need to do is put your lemon cookies onto some parchment (for easy clean up) and drizzle it over the top of the cookies.
Gluten Free Lemon Cookies
Finally a gluten Lemon sugar cookie you’ll love! has a lovely tangy sweet taste with real lemon juice and zest
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 12 minutes
Total Carbs: 15 g
Protein: 1 g
Servings: 22 cookies
4.73 from 55 votes
Ingredients
- 1.5cupsall purpose gluten free flour , 200g
- 1/2teaspoonxanthan gum, omit if your flour has gum added
- 1/2cupunsalted butter, or dairy free margarine 110g
- 1cupsugar , 200g
- 1large egg
- 1/4tspsalt, omit if your butter or margarine has added salt
- 1/2tspgluten free baking powder
- zest of 1 lemon
- 1tbspfresh lemon juice
- 1/2tspvanilla extract
Lemon Glaze
- 1cuppowdered sugar
- 1-2tbspfresh lemon juice
Instructions
*PLEASE READ NOTES FIRST!* then preheat your oven to 325F.
Cream butter (or dairy free margarine) and sugar together until well combined.
Add egg, salt,(omit salt if your butter/margarine has salt) vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice to the mixture and mix briefly to combine.
In a separate bowl mix together the flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, you want to make sure the gum is evenly distributed.
Add the flour slowly to the butter and sugar and mix together, don’t forget to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and make sure it’s all incorporated.
Chill cookie dough for at least 30 minutes or until it firms up a bit.
Use a cookie scoop to drop tablespoon sized balls of cookie dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Flatten each cookie with the your hand to about 1/4th to 1/2 inch thick.
Bake the gluten free lemon cookies for 12 -15 minutes.
Allow the lemon cookies to cool a little before transferring from baking sheet onto a cooling rack.
You can dust the cookies with powdered sugar or drizzle a little lemon glaze on them.
Cookies are best eaten fresh within a day or two, you can freeze them.
MAKE LEMON GLAZE
Mix the powdered sugar with the lemon juice, it will have a runny consistency.
drizzle the lemon glaze over fully cooled cookies and let them sit for the glaze to set.
Recipe Notes
BAKE BY WEIGHT
I bake by weight with a digital kitchen scale as I find that gives the most consistent results for gluten free baking, not all gluten free flour blends weigh the same due to the different flours. I also have cup measure for those that don’t yet have a scale.
GLUTEN FREE FLOUR
I prefer to use my own homemade gluten free flour blend as it’s cheaper and I get really great results over using ready mixed blends.
Nutrition Facts
Gluten Free Lemon Cookies
Amount Per Serving (32 g)
Calories 103Calories from Fat 36
% Daily Value*
Fat 4g6%
Saturated Fat 2g13%
Cholesterol 18mg6%
Sodium 32mg1%
Potassium 14mg0%
Carbohydrates 15g5%
Sugar 9g10%
Protein 1g2%
Vitamin A 140IU3%
Calcium 13mg1%
Iron 0.3mg2%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Nutritional information on Noshtastic is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site.
Author: Sheena Strain
Course:Cookies
Cuisine:American
About Sheena Strain
Sheena Strain is the proud owner of Noshtastic, a gluten free website that specializes in easy family meals including Low Carb, Keto, Paleo, Whole30, and many pressure cooker recipes.
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Deborah says
Best gluten free cookie of my lifetime-from a store, bakery or my own kitchen! I can’t seem to get enough lemon, so I increased the zest & substituted a full tsp of lemon extract for vanilla. I also didn’t flatten them with my hand before baking. These are melt-in-your-mouth good, I think in large part due to your feather-light flour mix!Reply
Cameron says
My daughter in law is gluten and dairy free…what would be the best substitute for the eggs?
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Sheena Strain says
Hi Cameron,
this recipe is already dairy free, eggs are not dairy. If she needs it to be egg free also then I would look and see what egg replacers you can find in your grocery store or ask her what she prefers to use to replace eggs with. The texture of the cookie will be quite different without eggs though.Reply
Hope says
Oh my goodness these are absolutely DELICIOUS!!! Best gluten free lemon cookies ever, hands downReply
Sheena Strain says
Hope, so glad you liked them!
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Dawn Waller says
These cookies are moist, rich and delicious! I left some unfrosted but on others I made a lemon cream cheese frosting to spread on top. So yummy! This recipe is a keeper for sure!Reply
Lisa says
I don’t understand your measurements. You have Flour 200g is 1-1/2 cups and then Sugar 200g for 1 Cup. Which measurement is correct? Should the Flour be 200g or 300 grams?
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Sheena Strain says
Hi Lisa,
so you can either make the cookies using either the cup measures or if you prefer to bake with a scale you can use the weight measures. Both are correct as a cup of sugar is heavier than a cup of flour.
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Sebastian says
Sooooo good I had to make another batch the next dayReply
Katie says
Can you use a replacement for Xanthan gum?
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Sheena Strain says
Hi Katie, I’ve never used a replacement but if you search online you may be able to find something else that works.
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Laura says
Omg some of the best cookies I’ve ever made. I added a little lemon zest to the icing and a tad more lemon juice to make a drizzle. Will be making these again for sure! Can’t believe they’re gluten free! I used Robin Hood gluten feee all purpose and measured by cup and it was perfect!Reply
Shirley McDaniel says
As I’ve recently become gluten intolerant I’m excited to see so much information available. I would be grateful for as much information as possible, I tried my hand at making bread even bought a machine but it doesn’t have a gluten free setting. Thanks
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Sheena Strain says
Hi Shirley, you can make bread without a gluten free setting on the machine, usually one rise is enough for most gluten free bread recipes but you’ll need to experiment.
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Bev says
Hello,
I made this recipe but substituted the sugar with maple syrup as my granddaughter can not have sugar(only natural sugars). I reduced the amount to 3/4 cup and the cookies turned out great I’m on my second batch…thank you for the recipe!Reply
Susan Swinney Lauchner says
Can these be made ahead a put in fridge or freezer
Reply
Sheena Strain says
Hi Susan,
yes they can but I think they taste better fresh. You can also make and freeze the cookie dough, and them bake them fresh as needed.Reply
Tanya Fleenor says
These are wonderful!!
I have a question about the weight, 225g looked like way more than 1 1/2 cups, so I checked it out later, and it’s 192g. Using the measuring cups worked just fine.Reply
Melissa Groff says
These cookies turned out AMAZING!! Works really well for a family of 11!Reply
Madison K. says
These gluten free lemon cookies really are the best!!!! My friends couldn’t even taste the difference, and they went fast. I think that the lemon icing really brought the whole thing together! I’ll definitelt be making these again 🙂Reply
PATRICIA BROWN says
These were great tasting and easy! My only difficulty was that they stuck to my hand when I tried to flatten them. I tried a fork and a spoon. Any suggestions.Reply
Sheena Strain says
Hi Patricia, if the dough is too soft you might need to refrigerate it a little bit until it hardens up enough to work with.
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Catherine says
Excellent recipe! A little sweet for me, but everyone in my family liked them. Lemon cookie recipes are hard to find, never mind gluten free ones. I wish I could reduce the sugar by a 1/4 to 1/2 cup (55g-110g) but I am not sure how to replace the lost volume in gluten free baking.
Any suggestions?Reply
Sheena Strain says
Hey Catherine,
I think you could just reduce the sugar by up to half cup and it would still be good, maybe the texture would be slightly altered but it’s worth a try!Reply
AnnaLee says
What do you make your gf flour from and what are the proportions? I like to weigh my recipes too.
Reply
Sheena Strain says
Hi AnnaLee,
I have a post about how I make up my gluten free flour blends I’ll link below, I hope that helps! Mostly I use a mix of white rice, brown rice, and tapioca and corn as that’s what’s most often available in the grocery store. If they have sorghum I’ll replace some of the brown rice with that, and if I can find potato starch I’d use that instead of corn. https://www.noshtastic.com/gluten-free-flour-recipe-all-purpose-blend/
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Wendy says
I just finished baking these cookies and they came out beautiful! I used my Silpat and started at 12 minutes and added 2 minutes to the cooking time 2x and kept my eye on them. I waited until I could see the tiniest hint of gold on the edge and took them out. Perfect! I’m going to drizzle them with white chocolate and dust them with powdered sugar. I have lemons candying in the oven right now and I’m going to place a quarter of a piece on top of each cookie. We are having a family cookie contest today and I think these will go over big.Reply
Sheena Strain says
Hi Wendy, I’m so glad they worked well for you and white chocolate over the top sounds YUM!!! I hope you win the contest! 🙂
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April Chesworth says
Notice there are two temperatures is it 325 or 359
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Sheena Strain says
Hi April, sorry about that, I was testing the recipe again recently and updated the cook temp in the recipe but missed it in the post, thanks for letting me know
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Lin says
Many thanks. When I get time to try, I will let you know the results.
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Lin says
Any idea if an egg substitute & coconut oil could be use instead of butter & still get good results?
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Sheena Strain says
Hi Lin, I have made them for a friend without egg and they worked but the texture was different than the version with egg. On coconut oil, I’m really not sure as I typically bake with vegan margarine. If you were going to attempt it with coconut oil I’d chill the dough until it firms up and see if that helps.
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Lauren Parker says
Did you just omit the egg or substituted it with something else? Wondering about applesauce as a sub, or flax egg, sparkling water, etc?
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Sheena Strain says
Hi Lauren, I used an egg substitute I bought in the store but it’s been a few years so I forget what brand it was.
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Linda says
I made these cookies and they are to die for. My husband loves chocolate so I wasn’t sure if he would like them. He loved them. Soft and just the right amount of lemon. I am making my 2nd batbatch today per His request. Thanks so much for this great recipe.Reply
Sheena Strain says
Hi Linda, I’m thrilled that your husband liked them, they were one of the first gluten free cookies I made and they are one of my favorites. You really need to try my Chocolate Chip cookies, they are really good too (I just made another batch yesterday) and I think he would enjoy them.
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Aliyah says
Really Good lemon cookie, i tried doing the weight, but was unsuccessful. So i used the cup measurements, which were way better. I got a pale, light lemon flavored cookie. I also did a little alteration i made a dent and added raspberry jam..made the cookie a bit more sweeter. I didn’t use the powdered sugar. Loved the flavor of both cookies.
Thank You for the recipe!!Reply
Barb says
I made this and mine are crunchy and hard around the edges, I made mine with red hill all purpose flour and the xanthan gum was already in it but they taste really good. These are my first cookies making gluten free, thank you
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Sheena Strain says
Hi Barb, I’m glad you liked them! It sounds like perhaps you either cooked them for just a little too long if they were hard on the edges or maybe your oven runs a bit hotter than mine. I would check them two to three minutes earlier next time and see how they look.
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Ghislaine says
Are the cookies intended to be rolled in the powdered sugar that gets placed in the bowl? I see that the cookies get sprinkled with it later but I didn’t understand the purpose of placing the powdered sugar in a bowl.
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Sheena Strain says
Hi Ghislaine, you are right, that’s a redundant step and I’ve edited it out.
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Ghislaine says
Thank you!
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