What’s Cooking at the Deep State, Super Secret Bakery? Easy Strawberry Lemonade Cookies

Easy Strawberry Lemonade Cookies

Adapted from a recipe @ Let’s Dish Recipes

Now that the air conditioning’s fixed at Casa de Don, we can get back to baking some cookies!  Thanks, Steve, for filling in last week, even though you left me a bunch of beer bottles to clean up.  😀

When I was a little kid, my mom used to make a to-die-for strawberry cake. It was beautifully pink, with pink frosting, and I’m pretty sure it was from-scratch, since back in those days we never had cake mix in the house. Alas, the recipe’s long-lost, and I’ve never been able to find one on the internet that rivals what my mom created, back in the day.

I’m mentioning this because making strawberry cake (or cookies) from fresh strawberries just doesn’t give you a product that’s appealing to the eyes. The cake turns out a dull brownish-red and looks downright ugly. Which is why we’re using a cake mix as the base for this cookie recipe.

“Crinkle” cookies — as they’re often called — are a really popular cookie to make using cake mix as the base, and these are really lovely. Pretty in color, and packed with strawberry and lemon flavor.

So please forgive me that they start with a cake mix. I promise, we’ll go back to scratch cookies next week. 😀

Cookies:

  • 1 box of strawberry cake mix (any brand — I used Duncan Hines Supreme)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup butter, softened
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 teaspoons lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Frosting:

  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 4-5 tablespoons lemon juice

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, eggs, butter, flour, lemon juice and zest. Beat with an electric mixer until well combined (batter will be sticky and very thick).
Using a 2 teaspoon scoop, drop dough onto prepared baking pans. Flatten dough balls to about 1/2″ thick. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool completely.

To make frosting, combine powdered sugar and about 3 tablespoons of lemon juice in a medium bowl until smooth. Add additional lemon juice, as needed, until frosting reaches desired consistency. Spread frosting over cooled cookies.

Using the 2-teaspoon scoop yielded 26 cookies

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