Easter Sugar Cookies
Easter Sugar Cookies are the cutest pastel treats to serve after Sunday lunch! Perfectly baked homemade sugar cookies are topped with the most delicious (and adorable) royal icing. These scrumptious cookies are loved by kids and grown ups alike!
Easter Sugar Cookies
Hip hop hooray! Easter is already here and I can’t believe it. I feel like I was just pulling Christmas cookies out of the oven to cool, and all of the sudden I’m cutting egg shapes into sugar cookie dough. Where does the time go?! Valentine’s Day also came and went in a heartbeat, and I feel like the year just keeps flying by. That’s why I like making homemade recipes like this one – they make me take my time and savor every moment!
Easter Sunday is one of my most favorite days of the year. Everyone is wearing their Sunday best, pastel colors are found everywhere, and most importantly – the food is delicious! After you’re finished enjoying your Bourbon Honey Baked Ham and Deviled Eggs, serve up something sweet when you present these Easter sugar cookies. They’re just as tasty as they are adorable!
I also love handing these cookies out to friends and neighbors for Easter, too. They’re just so cutely decorated, I can’t lie… I kind of like showing them off! With that being said, they also photograph perfectly. With all of the attention to detail that goes into decorating these pastel cookies, you’ll definitely want to show them off on social media! They’re almost too pretty to eat… almost.
How to Make Them
Here’s how to make the best sugar cookies from scratch:
Prepare your kitchen. Preheat your oven to 350°F/180°C and line your baking tray with parchment paper.
Cream the butter and sugar. Add the butter and sugar in your stand mixer (you can also use a hand mixer for this), and mix it on medium-high speed until it’s light and creamy in texture.
Add more wet ingredients. Add in the egg, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and zest and mix until the egg is fully incorporated into the mixture.
Add the dry ingredients. Now add the salt and cornstarch into the flour and mix well. Add this to the wet mixture in batches and mix at low speed until the dough comes together.
Create the eggs! Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment/wax paper to a 1/4th inch thickness and cut out egg-shaped cookies.
Bake the cookies. Bake the egg shaped cookies for 18 – 20 min or until cookies turn light golden.
Cool. Let the cookie cool down completely on a wire rack before decorating.
Time to make the royal icing:
Beat the egg white and sugar. Beat the egg white at low speed till it starts to froth. Now increase the mixer speed to high and slowly start adding in the sugar. After you have added all the sugar, the mixture should be very thick and white.
Create the colors. Divide the icing into two bowls and add yellow or any other food color of your choice to one.
Ice the cookies! Transfer half of both (white and yellow) colors to separate piping bags. Thin the remaining icing with 1-2 tsp of water. Outline the cookies with thick icing and pour the thinner icing over the cookies; let it dry completely. Decorate with thick icing in the piping bags.
Tips for the Best Easter Sugar Cookies
- Be sure to wait for the icing to dry up completely before decorating the cookies with different colors, as you will risk the colors mixing with each other.
- I used a yellow gel food color for contrast, but you can use any color you like! Pink, blue, or purple would all be pretty as well.
- Allow the icing to dry completely before stacking and storing the cookies.
Impress even the Easter bunny this year with these adorable treats!
- Easter White Chocolate Covered Strawberries
- Easter Bunny Oreo Ice Cream Cake
- Cadbury Mini Egg Cupcakes
- Mini Carrot Cheesecake
For more easy Easter desserts ideas, follow us on Instagram and Facebook!
Get the Recipe: Easter Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Unsalted Butter , +2 tablespoons
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 cups All-purpose Flour
- 1/4 cup Cornstarch
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg Egg
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons Lemon Juice
- 1 whole lemon, zested
Royal Icing:
- 2 whole egg whites
- 2 1/4 cups Powdered Sugar
- Yellow gel food color
Equipment
- baking sheet
- hand mixer
- piping bag
Instructions
- Preheat the oven at 350 F / 180 C and line your baking tray with parchment paper.
- Add in the butter and sugar in your stand mixer (you can also use a hand mixer for this), and mix it on medium-high speed till it’s light and creamy in texture.
- Add in the egg, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and zest and mix till the egg is fully incorporated into the mixture.
- Now add the salt and cornstarch into the flour and mix well. Add this to the wet mixture in batches and mix at low speed till the dough comes together.
- Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment/wax paper to a 1/4th inch thickness and cut out egg-shaped cookies and bake them for 18 – 20 min or until cookies turn light golden.
- Let the cookie cool down completely on a wire rack before decorating.
For Royal icing:
- Beat the egg white at low speed till it starts to froth. Now increase the mixer speed to high and slowly start adding in the sugar. After you have added all the sugar, the mixture should be very thick and white.
- (You can use it as is or reduce the consistency by adding 1-2 tsp of water before adding the color of your choice. The general rule of thumb is to use the thicker one for outline and use a little thinner version for filling the entire cookie.)
- Divide the icing into two bowls and add yellow or any other food color of your choice to one. Transfer half of both (white and yellow) colors to separate piping bags. Thin the remaining icing with 1-2 tsp of water.
- Outline the cookies with thick icing and pour the thinner icing over the cookies; let it dry completely. Decorate with thick icing in the piping bags.
3 Comments on “Easter Sugar Cookies”
Kellie, we don’t celebrate Easter, can I use this recipe for a drop sugar cookie?
BTW, those eggs look adorable!
Yes! You can absolutely use the dough for any type of sugar cookie, even drop cookies!
Thank you, Kellie!!!