Getting close to the end of the 2024 Christmas Treats. Just a few more to go! This is a riff on a classic crinkle cookie. But instead of chocolate, I’ve used lime. Not what you think of traditionally for Christmas (not mine anyway) but it is an absolutely refreshing cookie with a strong lime taste. I’ll explain below how I got that. This is another 2024 Christmas Treat – Lime Crinkle Cookies.

To pack the flavor of lime in, I used the zest, both in the dough, and also added more zest to the sugar that you roll the dough balls in. Remember citrus sugar, yup, just the zest of one lime and about 1 cup of sugar. Using your fingers, rub it together until you get a fragrant green tinged sugar. You’ll know if your limes are fresh or not by how green the sugar turns. Fresh limes have more moisture in them, and this moisture turns the white sugar pale green. If you have been following my blog at all, we’ve made orange, lemon and lime citrus sugar. Blood orange season is soon coming, do the same with the zest of blood oranges. 

There’s also a lot of lime juice, relatively speaking in this dough. There are three tablespoons for two cups of flour. That makes for a fragrant lime scented dough. You may be thinking of cutting back on the sugar, honestly I wouldn’t, it just boosts the lime flavor and lime needs the sweetness. Even my wife, the Chief Cookie Tester and Chairperson of the Sampling Committee said it was good as is. So don’t cut back if you don’t have to.

I used a touch of green food coloring. Totally optional but it’s Christmas and I wanted the color on my sweet table. I use the gelled kind, use what you have if you if you wish to have the green highlighted. This is a great cookie to serve with vanilla ice cream or crumbled on top of a cake or on its own. I’m actually having mine – right now, with a cup of orange-curcuma tea. Delicious!

The dough will be sticky so use a pad of butter on your hands to roll the balls. I couldn’t use a cookie scoop so I had to use a teaspoon. I did do some variations on the size of the cookies. I thought the first tray was too big, so tried some crescent shapes with a bit of dough, and then some smaller ones. I doubled the batch to yield about 90 cookies. I also tried a batch with rolling them log style and then slicing before baking. Make these cookies and, as always – enjoy!

Ingredients:
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup + 3 tbsps granulated sugar, divided
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
3 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice (about 4 – 5 limes)
2 teaspoon lime zest (about 2 limes – see tips below)
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
dab of green food gel (optional)
⅓ cup icing sugar

Directions:
1.  Heat oven to 325f and line two baking sheets with parchment paper
2.  Using a hand or stand mixer cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes
3.  Add egg, egg yolk, lime juice and zest and mix until combined 
4.  In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
5.  Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix until just combined – add the green food coloring at this point if using, and mix
6.  Using two small bowls, place the remaining 3 tablespoons granulated sugar in one, and the icing sugar in the second bowl
7. Using a teaspoon, scoop up a small bit of dough and form it into a ball (you can make larger cookies by using a 1″ (tablespoon) scoop (purple handle)
8.  Roll each ball into granulated sugar, followed by confectioners’ sugar and place on prepared baking sheets about 1 – 2 inches apart
9.  Bake cookies for 15-17 minutes, until set rotating trays half way through – the centers should still feel soft when done
10. Let cookies cool in pan for a couple minutes before moving to rack to cool completely

Notes, Tips and/or Recommendations:
Use the extra zest to make lime citrus sugar, add it to a cup of sugar and use this to do the first coat of sugar on the cookie dough balls, save the rest for a cocktail or limeade
Don’t let the cookies brown, if they move on the tray, you can probably take them out of the oven as they will harden as they cool
If it needs a bit of firming around the edges, leave in for 1 minute at a time and check after each minute
Add vanilla extract to the cookie dough for a more fragrant cookie
You can also add about 1/3 of the dough to a piece parchment and form it into a log; refrigerate for about 1 hour and then unroll cut and form each piece into a ball – the dough isn’t as sticky this way, continue as normal