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5 from 13 votes

Easter Cookies

These homemade Easter Cookies are a super fun Easter dessert and are so easy to make!
Prep Time2 hours 30 minutes
Cook Time10 minutes
Chilling Time2 hours
Total Time4 hours 40 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Servings: 12 Large Cookies
Calories: 254kcal
Author: Neha
Cost: $ 5

Equipment

  • Hand/stand Mixer
  • Cookie tray

Ingredients

Easter Cookies Ingredients:

  • 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¾ cup unsalted butter (softened to room temperature)
  • 6 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 large egg (at room temperature)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • ½ teaspoon almond extract (optional but adds so much flavor)

Royal Icing Ingredients:

  • 2 ¼ cups confectioner's sugar
  • 2.5 tablespoon meringue powder
  • 1 ½ teaspoons any oil-free extract
  • 4 to 6 tablespoons warm water

To decorate Sugar Cookies:

  • Few drops of Gel food coloring of choice
  • ½ cup Easter sprinkles

Instructions

How to make Easter Cookies:

  • Combine the dry ingredients. Add the baking powder, flour, and salt together and use a whisk to combine.
  • Beat wet ingredients. Using a stand mixer will work best to beat together sugar and butter. Combine them at high speed until creamy. Next, add in the vanilla, egg, and almond extract and mix on high for another minute or so.
  • Combine wet and dry ingredients. Mix the two together on low. This will create a dough that is soft. If it's sticky after this, you can add a tablespoon of flour to help it so that it will roll easier.
  • Roll out the dough. Once dough is formed, place it on parchment paper and place another parchment paper over it then roll the dough. Parchment paper will prevent the dough from sticking. If you still find dough to be sticky, you can spread some flour on the dough, while rolling it. Roll out the dough using a rolling pin until it's about ⅓ inch thick.
  • Chill the dough. You're going to need to chill the dough for 1-2 hours in the fridge or until it firms. Be sure that you have dough totally covered before placing it in the fridge with plastic wrap.
  • Preheat your oven. Take the chilled dough out of the fridge. Place parchment paper/silicon mats on baking sheet/sheets and use your Easter cookie cutters to make 4-inch egg-shaped cookies. Or go for shapes of choice. Re roll and cut out sugar cookies until all dough is used up.
  • Bake the cookies. Put the cookies on cookie sheet and give them space. Put the baking sheet in the oven for 10-11 minutes. Let the cooked cookies cool for 5 minutes right on the cookie sheet, and then move them to a cookie rack to cool.

To make the homemade cookie icing:

  • Add the flavoring. Mix flavoring with half of the water. Stir well.
  • Mix the sugar and meringue powder. Using a mixer with paddle attachment, combine the meringue powder and the sugar until smooth.
  • Mix in the flavoring. Be sure that you have the mixer as low as it will go and add the flavoring and water mix to the bowl of dry ingredients. It will no longer be smooth and that is fine.
  • Thicken the frosting. You're going to want to add the remaining water mixture slowly until it's thick. Once you notice that it has thickened up, stop adding water. turn the mixer to medium speed and mix until the frosting is fluffy. This will take up to 4 minutes or so. Your goal is to have the frosting make soft peaks.
  • Decorate as desired. You can also color/dye your icing into different colors. I used gel food colors here. Top with sprinkles of choice while the icing is still wet. Or you can dot sprinkles with a drop of icing and and top on iced cookies.

Notes

Storage: Let the cookies cool all the way and then store them in an airtight container. 
Freezing Instructions:
Cookies: Plain or iced sugar cookies can be frozen for up to 3 months. Allow icing to set completely before storing into air tight and freezer safe containers. Thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature.
Cookie dough: Cookie dough can also be frozen for up to 3 months. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and freeze it then in ziplocs. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight and then roll it out. Chill again until very firm to touch before cutting into shapes and baking.
Royal Icing:
  • Always store royal icing at room temp and not in the refrigerator. 
  • Use paddle attachment to make icing and not whisk. Since we do not want to whisk air into the royal icing.
  • If you don't like to much almond flavor in the cookies, you may half it. Or add lemon, mint, orange or even maple flavorings to your cookies.

Nutrition

Serving: 1Cookie | Calories: 254kcal | Carbohydrates: 39g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 10g | Sodium: 58mg | Sugar: 42g