Jumbo Bakery-Style Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies
Lemon is the flavor of the season and I am so excited to finally share this cookie recipe with you! From the fresh lemon zest to the white chocolate chips, this cookie is the perfect treat for any and all Summer celebrations.
Ingredients
Method
Day 1
- In a small bowl, combine the lemon zest and granulated sugar by zesting the lemon on top of the sugar and then crushing it together with your hands. This will release more lemon flavor so that it comes through better after the cookies have baked.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (you can also use an electric hand mixer for this recipe but it will get very thick at the end), whip the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar/lemon zest on medium speed until smooth (about 3-5 minutes).
- Scrape the bowl down with a rubber spatula and mix again until all of the sugar and butter is well combined.
- Add the room temperature eggs, vanilla extract, and lemon juice to the bowl. Mix to combine (you will probably need to scrape the bowl down again after this step to make sure it's all mixed in!). If you would like, you can add the optional lemon extract during this step as well (I always do for extra flavor).
- In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and poppy seeds.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and begin mixing on low speed. Once the ingredients have started to combine and they are forming a good crumble, increase the speed to medium and mix until everything is well incorporated.
- Next, fold in the white chocolate chips so that they are evenly distributed throughout the dough (you can also use white chocolate chunks by chopping white chocolate bars).
- Using a kitchen scale, weigh each cookie dough ball to 150g. Place the dough balls in a parchment paper-lined pan (I use a 9"x13" cake pan for this step). When forming the dough balls, I don't make perfect circles as I like the cookies to look organic! This will give you a better-looking "bakery-style" cookie after baking.
- Once all of your dough balls are measured (you should have about 17 jumbo cookies), tightly wrap the pan in plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator overnight.
Day 2
- When you're ready to bake the cookies, preheat your oven to 350℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place ~8 cookies on your baking sheet (about 2" apart from one another, they won't spread too much) and bake at 350℉ for 24-28 minutes, turning the pan halfway through so that you get even browning on the cookies. PLEASE NOTE: If you have a very high-powdered convection oven, like a commercial oven, it will take almost half the time listed above (14 minutes) so please keep an eye on your cookies as the baking time will vary depending on your oven. You will know they're done when they have slightly golden tops and are slightly golden on the bottom edge. Feel free to bake them for less time if you want them extra gooey inside or longer if you would like darker tops/bottoms but be warned that doing the latter may dry them out.
- Allow the cookies to almost fully cool on their pan before serving (do not move them to a cooling rack. The residual heat from the pan will continue to bake the cookies a little bit more once you pull them out of the oven).
Serving
- ALWAYS serve these cookies warm! They will be become very firm after they sit for a day and should NEVER be refrigerated! If you have any leftovers, save them in an air-tight container or Ziploc bag at room temp. for up to 3 days. Once you're ready to enjoy them, heat one in the microwave for 15-20 seconds or place them on a baking sheet and heat at 350℉ in the oven for 3-5 minutes or until they're warm in the center.
Notes
- I know this is a lot of cookie dough, so feel free to cut the recipe in half if you want to make around 8 jumbo cookies. This is the exact recipe that I used for my Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies that I sold for my business earlier this Spring which is why the recipe is so large!
- Please do not freeze the dough if you are trying to speed up the chilling process! Refrigerating the dough overnight is crucial as it locks in the flavor and will give you a much better cookie than if you place them in the freezer for a couple of hours to skip the overnight chilling process.
- That being said, you should freeze the dough if you are not baking all of the cookies the next day! You can keep this cookie dough in the fridge for 1 day and, after that, please seal them in a freezer bag and freeze until you’re ready to bake your cookies (you can freeze these for up to one month).
- If you are baking your cookies from frozen, I like to place the dough balls on a baking sheet and let them sit out for an hour or so before preheating the oven and following the baking instructions in this recipe. If you bake them directly from frozen, you will need add more baking time depending on your oven.
- I can’t stress this enough – ALL OVENS ARE DIFFERENT! As mentioned in the recipe instructions, if you have a high-powered convection oven, these cookies will only take about 14 minutes to bake (that is how long they take in my commercial-grade convection oven). Always keep an eye on anything that you’re baking while it’s in the oven as you don’t want to take them out way too soon if they still need a little longer or too late if they’ve been done for five minutes before your timer goes off.
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