Crackling Goodness: Neverfail Lemon Crinkle Cookies Made Easy!

These lemon crinkle cookies are adorable as they are delicious. These delicious, chewy cookies with the distinct "crackle" top are flavoured with lemon, white chocolate and coconut for an utterly moreish treat to go with tea or coffee. In this recipe I'll teach you how to get a never-fail crackle on your cookie. This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader!

Sometimes I make recipes that I consider keeping to myself in case I ever want to sell them commercially. This lemon crinkle cookie is one of them. It's not just that I spent literally three days baking and testing out 8 batches of these, it's also that they are so absolutely moreish and lemony too. These lemon crinkle cookies are simplicity itself as all you need is a whisk, spatula and bowl to make them.

Tips For Making Lemon Crinkle Cookies

1 - Please make sure to use the exact measurements as I've specified. The rising (and therefore cracking effect) agents are the eggs and the baking powder. If you add too much egg or baking powder the crinkle effect will not be as effective and they will look a bit like they exploded. Also make sure that your baking powder is still in date.

2 - There is no lemon juice in this cookies, only lemon zest so it's a great low waste recipe. I love using the zest as it has all of the aroma and flavour of lemon without the sourness of the juice.

3 - These crinkle cookies do not need to be refrigerated for 3 hours like crinkle cookies normally do. They can be baked straight away!

4 - Bake these as soon as you coat them with the icing sugar. Otherwise the icing sugar will melt into the cookie and you won't get that snow white effect.

5 - These lemon crinkle cookies will spread so make sure to not overcrowd the baking tray.

6- Bake these cookies at 170C/340F or 150C/300F fan forced as you don't want them to brown too much so that you can keep the golden yellow colour.

While I consider making 8 batches of cookies a necessity in order to perfect the recipe Mr NQN did wonder why the containers of lemon cookies were rapidly piling up. To him every day for the next month was going to be lemon cookie day but I explained to him that I had to get the recipe juuuust right. The flavour was always good but it was the shape of the cookies and the crackle effect that I was stuck on. Some batches were almost right but they were too thin, others had too much spread, some too little. But none of it was a waste of time as I finally got the recipe that I wanted with a reliable crackle!

I was talking to Laura the other day about things that we consider a waste of time. Mr NQN and I are both in agreement that we consider making the bed a waste of time. However many people including Laura consider bed making an essential start of the day. Even when I was young my parents never made me make the bed and I'm not sure why because they are fastidious people about pretty much everything else. I know it only takes a minute or two but when I think of the minutes per year that add up to 365 minutes or even 730 minutes that's between 6-12 hours a year spent making your bed where I can think of other things I'd rather be doing. But I know that if you're a bed making person that is time you'd happily spend and it's hard convincing you otherwise!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you make your bed? What do you consider a waste of time?

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes per tray

Makes 12 cookies

• 60g/2.1ozs white chocolate
• 65ml/2.3flozs coconut oil, liquid
• 165g/5.8ozs caster or superfine sugar
• 60g/2.1ozs egg, beaten
• Finely grated zest of 1-2 medium lemons (use 2 lemons if you love it really lemony)
• A few drops lemon flavouring
• A few drops yellow food colouring
• 180g/6.3ozs cake flour*
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup icing or powdered sugar, sifted

Cake flour can be bought at the supermarket. You can also make it at home. To make 1 cup/150g/5.2ozs of cake flour replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour with cornflour/fine cornstarch and whisk well. I usually mix up a big batch of this and keep it in a container ready for baking cakes as it produces a softer texture.

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 170C/340F or 150C/300F fan forced and line three baking trays with parchment. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl and then whisk with the coconut oil. Whisk in the caster sugar and egg.

Step 2 -Switch to a spatula and stir in the lemon zest, lemon flavouring and food colouring and mix until you get a cohesive mixture that looks the colour of an egg yolk. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together and add to the bowl and mix until combined.

Step 3 -Take the mixture and break off 45g/1.6ozs of dough and roll into a ball. Roll generously in the icing sugar until thickly covered, then roll in sugar again. Place 4 - 6 per tray with 5cms/2 inch apart -they will spread a bit. Bake immediately for 15 minutes. Make sure to bake the cookies straight away once you have rolled them in the icing sugar. Cool on the tray for 10 minutes and then place on a cooling rack.