Lemon Cookie Cake

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This Lemon Cookie Cake is soft and chewy with the perfect lemon flavor! Loaded with white chocolate chips and topped with swirls of lemon cream cheese frosting, it’s the perfect summer dessert!

Why You’ll Love This Lemon Cookie Cake Recipe

I am so in love with this Lemon Cookie Cake! It’s an older recipe that is getting an update today and when re-making it, I realized I’d forgotten just how good it is. Like, amazing! I’m already dreaming about when I get to make it again. Here’s why you’ll love it too.

• Just the right amount of lemon flavor. This cookie cake is nice and lemony (thank you lemon juice, lemon zest, and lemon pudding mix!) but not so lemony that you’ll be puckering your lips. It strikes the perfect balance between tart and sweet.
• Soft and tender. I love the texture of this dessert. It’s wonderfully soft and tender, but still a little dense and almost chewy (like a cookie should be!). Best of both worlds!
• So easy to make. Making this cookie cake is even easier than making cookies! The dough is super simple and you don’t have to form it into a bunch of cookie dough balls and do multiple rounds of baking.
• Perfect for an occasion. If you love cookies, but want something that seems a little more fancy, this cookie cake is the way to go!

What You’ll Need

Here’s a quick ingredients list for this lemon cookie cake recipe. Be sure to scroll to the recipe card below for precise measurements.

Lemon Cookie

• All-purpose flour – Be sure to measure your flour accurately, or you’ll end up with a dry cookie. I like to use a food scale, but you can also use the spoon and level method.
• Baking soda – To give the cookie a little rise and help keep it nice and tender.
• Salt – Don’t leave it out! Without it, your cookie cake will be bland.
• Unsalted butter – The butter should be at room temperature. If it is too cold or too melted it won’t cream properly with the sugar.
• Sugar
• Egg – Be sure to use large eggs, not medium or extra large.
• Vanilla extract
• Lemon juice – I highly suggest using freshly squeezed lemon juice. The bottled stuff will work but the flavor just isn’t the same.
• Lemon zest – While lemon juice delivers a nice punch of lemon flavor, the lemon zest really takes it over the edge.
• Lemon pudding mix – The pudding mix enhances the lemon flavor and is so worth using. You can leave it out if you’d like, though.
• White chocolate chips – Not a white chocolate chip fan? You can leave them out or replace them with something else.

Cream Cheese Frosting

• Cream cheese – Start with room-temperature cream cheese. If it is too cold, your frosting will likely turn out lumpy.
• Unsalted butter – The butter should also be at room temperature. Otherwise, your frosting might turn out lumpy.
• Powdered sugar – The powdered sugar adds volume and stability to the frosting. Reducing will it make it hard to pipe and it may not keep shape well.
• Vanilla extract
• Lemon zest – The lemon zest is the only thing adding lemon flavor to the cream cheese frosting, but it’s enough. Feel free to leave it out, if you prefer.

What Does The Lemon Pudding Mix Do?

I originally suggested that if you wanted more lemon flavor, you could add lemon pudding mix, but hadn’t actually tried it myself so it wasn’t listed in the recipe. Well, I got a number of comments from people saying that they loved the addition of it, so I tested it during my updating process and fell in love with it too. The recipe still works without it, but with it, you get an even softer and more lemon-y cookie cake. So good! And you just add the dry mix right to the cookie dough.

How To Make Lemon Cookie Cake

Here’s a quick look at how to make lemon cookie cake with lemon cream cheese frosting. Don’t forget to scroll to the recipe card below for more detailed instructions.

• Prep. Preheat the oven to 350°F, line the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper, and grease the sides.
• Combine the dry ingredients. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
• Combine the wet ingredients. Cream together the butter and sugar on medium speed for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the egg and vanilla followed by the lemon juice and lemon zest.

• Put it all together. Mix in the pudding mix and the other dry ingredients and then fold in the white chocolate chips.

• Bake. Press the cookie dough into the cake pan. I like pressing a few more white chocolate chips into the top. Bake for 19-24 minutes.
• Cool. Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan, flip it onto a cooling rack (it’ll be upside down), and then flip it onto another cooling rack so it’s right side up.

• Make the frosting. Beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Mix in 1 cup of powdered sugar followed by the vanilla extract and lemon zest. Mix in the remaining powdered sugar.
• Decorate. Pipe the frosting onto the edges of the cookie cake.

Tips for Success

• Measure your flour accurately. I highly suggest using the spoon and level method or a food scale to get the proper measurement for your flour. It will help ensure that your cookie cake isn’t too dry (too much flour) or too sticky (not enough flour). Check out my post on How to Measure Flour Correctly for more.
• Don’t skimp on creaming time. When creaming together the butter and sugar, do so until the mixture has significantly lightened in color and become fluffy. This process incorporates air into the dough, which helps ensure that the cookie cake doesn’t turn out overly dense.
• No ingredients left behind. When mixing ingredients into the dough and frosting, scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally to make sure everything makes it into the mix.
• Don’t over-mix. When mixing the dry ingredients into the dough and when folding in the white chocolate chips, mix just until everything is incorporated. No more. Over-mixing can cause the glutens in the flour to overdevelop. This can give you a tough, dense cookie cake.
• Don’t over-bake. It should be done baking when the edges are lightly golden and the center looks done and is no longer shiny. If it still jiggles a bit when moved, it’s ok. It’ll continue cooking and firm up as it cools. You don’t want to over bake it.
• Cool completely (in the pan). Allow the cookie cake to cool completely before attempting to remove it from the pan and frosting it. If you remove it from the pan before it has cooled, it will likely fall apart, making a mess. In addition, if you try to frost the cake when it is still warm, the frosting will slide right off. So be patient!

Proper Storage

• Room temperature. The cookie itself doesn’t need to be refrigerated, but the cream cheese frosting does. Feel free to store the cookie at room temperature after you bake it and just add the frosting before serving.
• Refrigerator. Seal the leftover cookie cake in an airtight cake carrier or arrange slices in a single layer in an airtight container. You can store it in the fridge for up to 5 days.
• Freezer. Pop the cookie cake in the freezer for a couple of hours to let the frosting firm up. Then, wrap the whole thing in a double layer of plastic wrap. Alternatively, arrange slices in a single layer in an airtight container. You can store it in the freezer for up to 3 months. Allow leftover lemon cookie cake to thaw in the fridge before enjoying.

More Lemon Desserts

• Creamy Lemon Tart Recipe
• No Bake Lemon Cheesecake
• Lemon Blueberry Cake
• Easy Lemon Bars Recipe
• Lemon Loaf Cake
• Lemon Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake

The updated version of this lemon cookie cake hasn’t changed much from the original, but if you love the old version and would like a copy, you can download this PDF of the recipe.

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