Name: Chick-Shaped Lemon Cookies
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 12 min
Ingredients: 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour ((210g, $0.51)); ½ tsp baking soda (($0.01)); 1 tsp cornstarch (($0.01)); 1 tsp salt (($0.01)); ½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled ((1 stick butter/8 tbsp, $1.25)); 1 ½ cup granulated sugar ((150g, $0.28)); 1 egg (($0.17)); ½ tbsp lemon zest ((½ medium lemon, $0.25)); 3 tbsp lemon juice ((1 medium lemon, $0.25)); 1 tsp lemon extract (($0.42)); yellow food coloring (liquid, gel, or powder); melted white chocolate dyed with oil-based food coloring

Disclaimer: This blog post is sponsored by Hamilton Beach. All opinions and writing are my own.

✉️ want to save this?

enter your email and i’ll send it directly to your inbox! & as a bonus, you’ll get new recipes & resources sent to you every month. 💛

It’s been a while since my last animal cookie recipe, and I’m happy to share this new one to celebrate the upcoming Spring season! These chick-shaped lemon cookies are so adorable, slightly tangy, and cakey with crispy edges. They were an absolute breeze to make with my newest kitchen gadget: the Hamilton Beach® Professional Hand Mixer with Easy Clean Beaters!

Check out my other animal cookie recipes here: Black Cocoa Cat-Shaped Cookies (Vegan), Frog-Shaped Matcha Sugar Cookies (Vegan), Pig-Shaped Snickerdoodles (Vegan), Soft, Less Sweet Ube Sugar Cookie Bears (Dairy-Free!)

About the Hamilton Beach® Professional Hand Mixer with Easy Clean Beaters

I’ve actually been needing a hand mixer for quite some time, and I’m absolutely in love with this one. It works like a charm—it has seven different speeds and Slow Start™ technology, meaning that it starts off very slowly so that batter doesn’t fly into the air, which I have done many times in the past. The hand mixer also has a quick-release button to easily remove the attachments. Also, the easy clean beaters make it, well, really easy to remove any type of batter! It also comes with a storage case, so you don’t have to worry about organizing all the pieces in your kitchen.

You can buy it yourself at Target, or even better—you can enter my Instagram giveaway to win your own for free!!! You can also check out my Instagram reel below, where I show how I used the Hamilton Beach® Professional Hand Mixer with Easy Clean Beaters to make these chick-shaped lemon cookies!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bianca Fernandez 🇵🇭 (@bitesbybianca)

Necessary equipment + ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need for this recipe:

Equipment:
- Measuring cups (or scale)
- Measuring spoons
- Mixer: I used my Hamilton Beach® Professional Hand Mixer with Easy Clean Beaters!
- Mixing bowl
- Rubber spatula
- Zester or microplane grater
- Medium-sized cookie scoop: holds about ~1.5 tbsp.
- Two baking trays lined with parchment paper or silicone mats
- Piping bags: you can also use ziploc bags and snip off the corner.

Dry ingredients:
- All-purpose flour: you can sub with 1:1 gluten-free flour if you’d like!
- Baking soda
- Cornstarch
- Salt
Wet ingredients:
- Unsalted butter
- Granulated sugar
- Egg
- Lemon zest
- Lemon juice
- Lemon extract: do not skip this! It adds a lot of flavor to the cookies!
- Yellow food coloring: can be powdered, gel, or liquid.
Decorations:
- Melted white chocolate: make sure to use use oil-based food coloring.

Making the dough

In a medium bowl, whisk together all of your dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt. I recommend weighing the flour to make sure you are using the right amount. If you don’t have a scale, please refer to these tips:

Do not tightly pack the flour into the measuring cup or use the measuring cup to directly scoop from the bag of flour.
Instead, gently spoon the flour into the measuring cup until it is above the rim. Then, use a knife to level the flour to get a smooth top.

In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to cream together the butter, sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice on medium speed until smooth, about 1-2 minutes. You’ll then add the rest of your wet ingredients (egg, lemon extract, and yellow food coloring), mixing until combined. Then, add all of the dry ingredients, using hand mixer on low-medium speed until most of the flour is incorporated. Using a rubber spatula, clean off the beaters and fold the dough together until no dry flour remains.

Shaping the dough

To shape the dough, I recommend using a medium-sized cookie scoop, which holds about 1 1/2 – 2 tablespoons of dough. Roll the dough between your hands until you get a smooth ball, then place it onto a lined baking tray. Flatten the ball using either the palm of your hand or the bottom of a cup/mug. This will be the chick’s head. To make the two tufts of feathers, take about 1/4 tsp of dough, shape into a ball, and place on top of the head. Repeat for the second tuft, using a slightly smaller or larger amount of dough.

The cookies are then baked at 350°F/177°C for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are set + slightly firm and the centers are a bit puffed, but not too underbaked in the middle. The cookies will not brown because of the yellow food coloring, so please do not over bake them! Once the lemon cookies are removed from the oven, allow them to cool on the baking tray for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack, where they will be left to fully cool.

Decorating the cookies

While the cookies are cooling, you can work on melting your white chocolate! Heat white chocolate in a bowl in the microwave at 10-15 second bursts, stirring in between, until fully melted. Use oil-based food coloring to dye the white chocolate different colors. Here, I used orange for the beak, black and white for the eyes, and pink for the blush. Here is one of my favorite tips for easier clean up:

I really don’t enjoy doing dishes, so I try to use as little bowls as possible. In a small bowl, I start off with the fully melted white chocolate. I pour some of it into a piping bag (this will be for the whites of the eyes) and move that aside. I then move to the next darker color. In this case, it is pink for the chick’s blush. I add in pink food coloring, stir, then transfer some of that into another piping bag. In the same bowl with the pink white chocolate, I’ll add orange dye, stir it in, then move some of that orange white chocolate to a new piping bag. Lastly, I’ll dye the remaining orange white chocolate in the bowl with black food dye, and transfer it all into its own piping bag.

This tip makes you only use one bowl instead of four, which I think is great! Once you have all of your colors, snip the ends of the piping bags and decorate your cookies!