Learn how to make the best lemon poppy seed cookies with this easy recipe. These cream cheese sugar cookies are laced with lots of lemon zest, poppy seeds, and a tiny amount of citric acid to bring that bright lemony flavour everybody loves. This recipe doesn't require any chilling so you can make the lemon cookie dough and bake it right away!
There are two types of sugar cookies: cutout sugar cookies that require chilling, rolling and cutting with cookie cutters and sugar cookies that are drop cookies where the dough is scooped and baked. These lemon sugar cookies fall in the drop cookie category, which means less work and a faster reward!
While both these lemon poppy seed cookies and these chocolate sugar cookies don't require chilling, that's not true for every drop sugar cookie recipe. These maple sugar cookies are a little more complex (in both the ingredients and the method) and take a little more time (chilling in the fridge overnight), but they are still well worth the effort!
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What You Need to Make Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies
These lemon poppy seed cookies are based on a cream cheese sugar cookie recipe. Adding cream cheese to sugar cookie dough creates a thick and chewy cookie with a really nice flavour. Here's what you need to make these:
- butter—this recipe was developed with unsalted butter. If using salted butter, you may want to adjust the salt in the recipe to avoid the cookies being too salty
- cream cheese—use full-fat cream cheese sold in bricks (blocks). I prefer to bake with Philadelphia brand cream cheese. Don't use whipped cream cheese or spreadable cream cheese because the composition is different and it will affect the texture and spread of the cookies.
- lemon zest—fresh lemon zest adds a ton of flavour. I zested 2 lemons to get enough zest for these cookies. The zest of 1 lemon wasn't sufficient in my tests
- sugar—you will need white granulated sugar for this recipe. Don't use brown sugar which will impart too much colour and molasses flavour that doesn't work here
- egg—all the recipes on this site are tested with large eggs. If using smaller or larger eggs, this will affect the texture of the cookies and how they spread
- flour—I bake with regular bleached all-purpose flour. These cookies will likely work with unbleached flour, though the texture may be a little different
- poppy seeds—if your poppy seeds are old, toss them out and buy more because the oils in them can go rancid and the flavour will be off
- leavening agent—you will need baking soda, not baking powder for these cookies. Read about baking soda versus baking powder if you aren't sure the difference
- salt—I bake with Diamond Crystal Fine Kosher salt. If you are using regular table salt, you may want to add half the amount to avoid the cookies being too salty
- citric acid—this ingredient is available in most scoop shops and bulk stores (often used for making pickles). It's the secret ingredient to bring a tart flavour to these lemon cookies without having to add lemon juice (which may ruin the texture of the cookies).
Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.
Substitutions and Variations
This is a simple recipe with just a few variations and substitutions possible. Here are some ideas:
- Lemon variation—you can skip the poppy seeds and keep these plain
- Poppy seed substitutes—chia seeds could work in this recipe because there's not much moisture for them to absorb, but the flavour wouldn't be great. I would prefer to replace the poppy seeds with sesame seeds
- Orange poppy seed variation - replace the lemon zest with the same amount of orange zest (inspo: this orange poppy seed loaf cake)
How to Make Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies
I prefer to make cookie dough in the stand mixer. Here's how to make them:
Step 1—Combine the butter, cream cheese, sugar and lemon zest in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (image 1). Cream them together until light and fluffy before adding the egg (image 2).
Step 2—Whisk the dry ingredients together in a separate along with the poppy seeds (image 3) and add them to the mixer bowl (image 4). Stir until the dough comes together (image 5).
Step 3—Use a medium cookie scoop to divide the dough into 50 gram portions (image 6). I like to smooth out the scoops between the palms of my hands, then roll them in sugar to coat them (image 7).
Step 4—Bake the sugar cookies six at a time on a half-sheet pan (image 8) and bake until the edges begin to brown and the tops have set and cracked (image 9).
Storage
Store these sugar cookies in an airtight container. They can last a week, and if anything, the texture and flavour are even better after a day of storage.
Other Recipes To Bake With Citrus
If you love lemon and citrus as much as I do, here are a few more baking recipes with citrus to try:
If you tried this recipe for lemon poppy seed cookies (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!
📖 Recipe
Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies
Ingredients
- 280 grams bleached all-purpose flour
- 14 grams poppy seeds
- 3.75 mL baking soda
- 1.25 mL citric acid optional but gives the cookies more zing
- 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt or 1.25 mL (¼ tsp) table salt
- 300 grams granulated sugar plus extra for rolling the scoops of cookie dough before baking
- 115 grams unsalted butter softened
- 75 grams Philadelphia cream cheese (full fat, regular) softened
- 30 mL finely grated lemon zest
- 1 large egg(s)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Line three large half-sheet pans with parchment paper and set them aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, poppy seeds, baking soda, salt, and citric acid. If there are lumps, use a sifter. The salt and poppy seeds will not pass through, so dump them into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients.
- In a large bowl, using an electric hand mixer or stand mixer, cream together the sugar, butter, cream cheese, and lemon zest until it's very light and fluffy.
- Add the egg and mix well until the mixture is light and fluffy again. Clean down the sides of the bowl as needed with a big spatula.
- Pour the whisked dry ingredients into the mixer bowl, and incorporate them either on low or by hand with a big wooden spoon.
- Scoop approximately 50-gram portions of the dough, rolling them into balls between the palms of your hands to smooth them out, then rolling them in granulated sugar to completely coat them.
- Place 4–6 cookies per cookie sheet, being sure to space them apart and stagger them.
- Bake the cookies one sheet pan at a time until the edges are set and the surface cracks (this takes about 14 minutes).
- Let the cookies cool completely on the sheet pan while you bake the second pan.
- Store in an airtight container.
Notes
- For the salt, use 2.5 mL (½ tsp) of Diamond Crystal Fine Kosher salt or 1.25 mL (¼ tsp) of table salt
- I had to zest 2 lemons to get enough zest to flavour these cookies. One was insufficient and didn't impart nearly enough flavour
- Citric acid is available in scoop or bulk stores. It's used for making pickles, though I've also incorporated it in cream cheese frosting for the Milk Bar birthday cake to give it a more tart bright flavour.
- Use a cookie scoop to portion out the cookie dough easily. Then roll each scoop into a smooth ball so that it bakes perfectly. Evenly scooped cookies will bake at the same time, whereas if you portion out dough unevenly, they will not.
- If sealed properly, these cookies will last 4 or 5 days in an airtight container.
- Please note that I bake with light-coloured uncoated aluminum sheet pans. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature to 325 °F (165 °C) in order to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.
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