Name: Lemon Chocolate Chip Cookies
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 27 min
Ingredients: 190 g self raising flour; 150 g butter (salted); 75 g castor sugar; 50 g soft brown sugar; 2 tbsp finely grated lemon rind (about 2 lemons); 1 egg yolk; 1 tsp vanilla essence; 150 g dark chocolate chips

Spread the love for baking and decorating

Lemon chocolate chip cookies with a lovely lemon flavor that pairs so wonderfully well with dark chocolate, bringing these chocolate chip cookies to a whole new level altogether!

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe Pin Recipe

0 from 0 votes

If you love lemon and dark chocolate, these lemon chocolate chip cookies are a must-try. You will definitely love the delectable combination of the citrus flavor in the cookie dough and the generous amount of chocolate chips in the cookies. Yum!

Chocolate chip cookies arranged on a level surface. Each cookie is arranged close to one another.

The citrus flavor comes from lemon zest that is added to the cookie dough before the chips are added in. They are then shaped into round balls, added more chocolate chips on top and baked to a light brown color.

These cookies can be made soft and chewy if you like them that way and can also be made soft and crispy in you love them in that way. All this is possible with the same cookie dough, you just need to adjust the baking time. Both ways, the cookies are deliciously soft and always impossible to stop with just one.

How to Bake Lemon Chocolate Chip Cookies

These chocolate chip cookies are very easy to put together. With a preparation time of 15 minutes and a baking time of 12 minutes, you can literally have a tray of these freshly baked, lemon-flavored chocolate chip cookies in under 30 minutes!

Ingredients

Here’s what goes into the cookies:

Self-raising flour
Butter
Granulated sugar
Soft brown sugar
Finely grated lemon rind
Egg yolk
Vanilla essence
Dark chocolate chips

Mixing the lemon chocolate chip cookie dough

The process starts with the creaming of the butter and both sugars (white and brown sugars) until creamy. Unlike cakes, you need not beat the butter and sugars until its all light and fluffy, suffice if it is well creamed. In fact, beating too much will make the cookies spread too much during baking.

Butter, brown sugar and white sugar in a bowl.

Add in the egg yolk. Beat into the creamed mixture until well incorporated.

An egg in a bowl of creamed butter and sugar

Next, add in the flour. You can use your mixer to mix the flour into the creamed mixture. Once the flour is all incorporated, add the grated lemon zest and give it a few seconds more of mixing with the mixer.

Flour in a bowl of creamed butter, sugar and eggs

Finally, the chocolate chips go in. Use only two thirds of the chips mentioned in the recipe. Reserve the remaining one third for later. This time, mix them in with a metal spoon instead of the mixer.
You would not want to break your chocolate chips by mixing them with a cake mixer. Mix until the chips are evenly distributed.

Chocolate chips in a bowl of cookie dough

Shaping and baking the chocolate chip cookies

The cookie dough will be sticky at this point. Leave it to rest for about 2 to 3 minutes and then start scooping it to about 1 tablespoon sizes.
Shape the dough into round balls (you need not do this if you are using an ice cream scoop as the dough will be well rounded when scooped with an ice cream scoop) and place them well apart on a lined baking tray.
Press the earlier reserved one third chocolate chips onto the dough balls.

Round balls of dough with chocolate chips attached on a parchment lined baking tray.

Bake the cookies for 12 minutes until the sides have turned slightly brown. At this stage, the cookies are lightly crispy on the edges and soft and chewy in the center. Remove from the oven and let them rest in the tray for a few minutes before removing them.
The cookies are very soft as soon as they are out of the oven, so the resting time is essential to avoid them from breaking as you lift them. Let the cookies cool down on a wire rack. Store them in an airtight container if not consumed immediately.

Baked cookies with chocolate chips on a baking tray

Lemon Chocolate Chip Cookies – Recipe Notes

Here are my notes for this recipe. Reading these will help you understand the recipe and help in making any adjustments if you wish so.

Sugar

I used both brown sugar and white sugar in the recipe. Brown sugar gives the cookies a deep, molasses-like flavor and makes an excellent choice of sweetener for chewy cookies.
White sugar, on the other hand, helps make the cookies crispy, so with the right amount of baking time, this recipe can be used to make chewy cookies, with soft chewy centers and crispy edges. If you increase the baking time slightly more, the chewy centers bake further for totally crispy cookies.

Butter

The butter used in the recipe is salted butter. I use salted butter in all my baking. Unsalted butter is also fine but remember to add some extra salt when creaming the butter and sugar.

Flour

The flour in the recipe is self-raising flour. If you don’t have self raising flour, plain flour will be just as fine. Remember to add 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder into the flour and either sift or mix with a whisk to incorporate the baking pwder into the flour.

Chocolate Chips

I used dark chocolate chips in this recipe, and if you prefer, you can substitute these for milk chocolate chips or even white chocolate chips. Also, if you are in a warm climate like me, keep the chips refrigerated until they are ready to go into the dough. Keeping them out at room temperature can soften them and result in your cookie dough turning chocolate as you mix the chips in.
The recipe calls for two-thirds of the chocolate chips to be added into the cookie dough and the remaining one third to be pressed onto the cookies. The pressed chips make the cookies look delectable. You can alternatively, add all the chips into the cookie dough if you wish so.

Lemon Zest

The amount of lemon zest used in this recipe, which is from 2 lemons (approximately 2 tablespoons of loosely packed zest) is just nice to give the cookies a noticeable citrus flavor. Anything lesser will give a too-mild a lemon presence in the cookies, it is hard to notice any lemon flavor in them.

Baking the lemon chocolate chip cookies

These cookies spread considerably when baking, so place the cookie dough balls well apart on the baking tray so that they don’t touch and stick to one another when baking.
Also, when shaping the cookie dough, you need not flatten the dough balls, the cookies will spread on their own in the oven. If you flatten the cookies, you will end up with cookies that are overly spread and thin.
The cookies are very soft as soon as you remove them from the oven. Let them rest on the parchment paper they were baked on for a few minutes before attempting to remove them for cooling.

Variation

These cookies can be customized further by adding nuts or dried fruits to the dough. To keep the proportion of the cookie dough to these additions consistent, reduce the amount of chocolate chips by the amount of nuts you wish to add to the cookies.

Cookie dough consistency

As soon as the cookie dough is mixed, it will be a little sticky to the hand. Letting is rest for about 5 to 10 minutes helps to bring the dough together and manageable.

Baking time

Baking time varies by cookie size and by the texture of the cookies. Each cookie is scooped with a tablespoon and shaped into round balls. If you wish to reduce the size of the cookies, you would need to reduce the baking time accordingly, vice versa.
For chewy cookies, follow the time indicated in the recipe, and for smaller chewy cookies, you would need to reduce the baking time further. Similarly, for larger chewy cookies, increase the baking time accordingly for the cookies to bake thoroughly but remain chewy. Increase the baking time even more for crispier cookies.
The baking time indicated in this recipe will produce cookies that are lightly crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. If you wish to make cookies that are crispy all the way, increase the baking time by about 3 to 5 minutes.

Storing the cookie dough & the baked cookies

This cookie dough can be refrigerated if you do not wish to bake the cookies immediately. You can keep the batter refrigerated for a good one day. Just do not add the chocolate chips into the dough. Do it the next day once the dough is at room temperature. That way, the chocolate chips do not get melted in the cookie dough.
Keep the cookies stored in an airtight container if not consumed immediately.

A stack of chocolate chip cookies with a sliced lemon in the background.

Lemon Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Here is the full printable version of my lemon chocolate chip cookies recipe:

Lemon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Lemon chocolate chip cookies with a lovely lemon flavor that pairs so wonderfully well with dark chocolate, bringing these chocolate chip cookies to a whole new level altogether!

0 from 0 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Lemon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 12 minutes

Total Time: 27 minutes

Yield: 36 cookies

Author: Priya Maha

Metric – US Customary