Moist, buttery, and delicate, with an incredible and intense fragrant lemon flavor, these cake-like cookies simply melt in your mouth. They are simple, wonderfully bright, sugar-coated bites of sunshine that will make your heart and soul sing ☀️!!

An aside:
I don’t feed my sourdough starter as often as recommended. I have baker friends who feed their little mothers daily – that’s FAR too much work for me. I have enough stress in my life to have to worry about that! Good god, I have myself to feed, I can’t occupy myself with feeding a culture on a daily basis too! And, then the waste. I despise discard and waste of any sort.
Thus, I feed my sourdough mother weekly, or even biweekly, by simply baking bread for friends and family. THIS FEEDS connection – and THAT feeding is far more worthy of my time than flour and water.

And we are back to the cake – freshly baked ciambella: a classic Italian cake similar to pound cake made with tart lemon and a craggy sourdough crust of sourdough bread discard. The flavor and texture are sublime – and just amazingly wonderful in eternal situations (anytime, anywhere). And, this is a dessert made with hardly any effort at all.

I wanted to bake more than a cake, though. Cookies to easily feed a crowd – cakes are beautiful – cookies are transportation friendly.

Additional points of insight:

• the crinkle cookies are both cake-like and delicate
• the special consistency requires a non-negotiable chill time – the batter is loose and “cakey” and needs to set
• a roll in granulated sugar, followed by a roll and dust in powdered sugar creates the best crinkle
• you’ll be tempted to add extra flour based on the look and feel of the cake batter-dough, don’t do it!
• you will immediately want to move to Italy and sit on the porch drinking limoncello – you must take me with you!

Bake away –

Lemon Sourdough Crinkle Cake Cookies

Lemon Sourdough Crinkle Cake Cookies

3/4 cup granulated sugar + zest of 2 fresh lemons, expressed into the sugar and hand-rubbed onto the granules
1/2 cup + 1 Tbs. melted butter, room temperature
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temperature
juice of 2 fresh lemons
1/3 cup sourdough starter
2 cups all purpose flour tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar (for coating cookie balls before baking)
3/4 cup powdered sugar (for coating cookies before baking, after the granulated sugar)

Mix together until formed into a smooth, batter-like cookie dough.

(At this stage, the cookie dough will really be more like a batter – very soft and sticky, bordering on runny. That’s how it should be. Don’t add more flour!)

Chill the dough in the fridge for at least two hours. This ensures the dough can not only be handled and shaped but that the cookies won’t melt into puddles while baking!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Line two large baking sheets with parchment.
Dip a small melon baller or Tbs. measuring spoon in powdered sugar to scoop out the chilled dough from the bowl. With sugar-dusted hands, form the dough into balls and roll in granulated sugar and THEN roll in powdered sugar. (Rolling in granulated sugar first, followed by the powdered sugar, ensures the pretties cookies – a lovely white coating of powder will crack in a beautiful, random, “crinkle” pattern.

Place the balls 1 1/2″ – 2″ apart on the parchment-lined sheets.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies have risen and expanded into large mounds with cracks in the sugared surface.
The cookies are done when the cracks no longer appear wet or shiny.

So very delicate, allow the mounds to cool on the cookie sheets for 15 minutes, before carefully transferring to a wire rack to cool completely (or leave on the sheets, if desired).