Copycat Girl Scout Lemonades

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These Copycat Girl Scout Lemonades cookies are sweet and tangy and absolutely irresistible. The best part is that with just a few basic ingredients, you make your own version of these delectable treats any time of year.

🍋 Girl Scout Lemon Cookies

Girl Scout cookies are an American classic everyone loves. From Thin Mints and Samosas to the classic Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies, who doesn’t get excited about their annual release?

One of their most popular seasonal cookies are the delightful Lemonades Cookies but what happens when Girl Scout cookie season ends? Fear not…with this easy copycat recipe you can have these lemony cookies anytime the cravings hit.

Lemon short bread cookies are dipped in a homemade tangy lemon icing and topped with the perfect lemon design on top. These sweet treats are a perfect addition to any cookie platter, cookie swaps, or just a tasty afternoon snack.

If you’re looking for more lemony sweet treats, you’ll want to check out this Lemon Pound Cake and Lemon Cheesecake Parfaits too!

💖Why We Love This Recipe

Flavor: With lemon in the dough and in the glaze, these copycat Girl Scout cookies are loaded with lots of lemon flavor.
Convenient: No need to wait on those boxes of Girl Scout Cookies to come out. With this recipe, you can make your favorite girl scout cookie any time you want.
Freezer friendly: You can bake several batches of these cookies and freeze some for later. They make awesome last-minute desserts.

🔪Recommended Tools

Whisk
Stand mixer or hand mixer
Large bowl
Small bowl
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
9×11 baking Sheet
Parchment paper
2 circle cookie cutters (1 smaller and 1 that’s slightly bigger)
Rolling pin

Ingredients:

For the Cookie Dough

Softened butter, unsalted
Salt
White granulated sugar
Egg
Fresh lemon juice
Flour

For the Lemon Glaze

Powdered sugar
Fresh lemon juice
Yellow food coloring (optional it gives the glaze a pretty yellow color)

👩🏼‍🍳How to Make Lemonades

Making The Cookies

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Step 1. In a mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment) blend the butter and salt on low speed for about a minute.

Step 2. Add the sugar and mix together and whisk again until combined.

Step 3. Add the egg and lemon juice to the mixture and mix once again.

Egg and lemon juice with sugar mixture in glass bowl

Step 4. Next, add the flour and mix together until a dough forms.

Note: For best results, this dough should not be super stiff, but it should not be sticky at all either. If it is, you can add an extra tablespoon or two of flour.

Step 5. Using a rolling pin, roll out the cookie dough on a clean floured surface until you have about an ½ inch thick slab.

Step 6. Take the larger circle cookie cutter and cut out as many circles as you can.

Step 7. Place the cut out circles of dough on the prepared baking sheets. Take the excess and repeat the rolling process to finish cutting out the rest of the cookies.

Cookies cut into circles on parchment paper

Step 8. Create an additional inner circle by pressing the smaller cookie cutter into the dough circles about ¼ inch deep. This gives the cookies the look of a true lemon rind.

Round imprints made around edges of cookies

Step 9. To make the individual lemon wedges, use a paring knife to create a vertical line straight in the center of each cookie dough circle. Then, score a diagonal line ⅓ of the way to the left of the vertical line and another ⅓ way to the right of the vertical line.

Step 10. For the finishing touch, create little slits within each of the 6 triangles close to the center of the lemon cookie to recreate the look of lemon seeds.

Step 11. Place the lemon wedge cookies on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 17-20 minutes or until the bottoms have slightly browned.

Smaller lines made to look like seeds in lemonades cookies

Decorating The Cookies

Step 12. While the cookies are baking, whisk the confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl until a slightly thick glaze is formed.

Step 13. Add a few drops of lemon food dye and mix the glaze well.

Powdered sugar and lemon juice mixed with food coloring

Step 13. Allow the baked cookies to cool for about 10 minutes.

Baked Girl Scout lemonades cookies on cookie sheet

Step 14. Dip the bottom of each lemon cookie into the lemon glaze, coating the lower half of the cookie completely. Let the excess glaze drip off and put them back onto the parchment paper.

Step 15. Let the glaze harden on your cookies for about 30 minutes. Enjoy!

How Long Do Lemonades Last?

You can store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

Copycat Girl Scout Lemonades Cookies up close

Can You Freeze These Lemon Cookies?

You can also freeze these girl scout lemonade cookies for 3-4 months in a freezer-safe container. Thaw slightly and eat them while they’re still cool for a refreshing lemony sweet treat.

Variations to Consider

These cookies are perfect just the way they are but you can also experiment with changing them up. Here are some ideas to consider:

Extra tangy cookies: Add even more pucker to these cookies by adding in some fresh lemon zest to the dough.

Replace the lemon juice: If you prefer, you can add lemon extract to the dough in place of the fresh lemon juice. You’ll only need about a teaspoon.

Extra glaze: If you want the cookies to be extra sweet, you can skip scoring the wedge design and dunk the whole cookie in the glaze.

Other flavors: If you’re a big orange fan, you can easily make these cookies the same way but with fresh orange juice in place of the lemon juice. You can also experiment with different extracts in the dough, like almond extract or butter extract.

Are Girl Scout Lemon Ups the Same as Lemonades?

While both are lemon Girl Scout cookies, the two cookies are slightly different. Lemon-Ups are new, and they replaced the Savannah Smiles, which were lemon shortbread cookies coated in powdered sugar.

The main difference in these two cookies is that lemon ups are crispy cookies with an encouraging message imprinted on them. Lemonades are equally delicious, but they are designed with a lemon wedge look. Both cookies have the same lemon-flavored icing that give the cookies that tangy kick!

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