Apple Decorated Sugar Cookies Using a Palette Knife Blending Technique

It’s now officially fall and my first fall tutorial of the year are these cute apple decorated sugar cookies. These apple sugar cookies are even topped with apple buttercream frosting!

To make these apples look a bit more realistic, I’ve used a blending buttercream technique. I will be teaching you how to do this technique step-by-step in the photo series and video tutorial below.

It isn’t difficult if you have used a palette knife before, one of my favorite tools. If you are completely new to buttercream sugar cookie decorating, I think you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

Let’s dive into the tutorials!

*This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my full disclosure for further information.*

Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Apple Decorated Sugar Cookies

To decorate these cute apple decorated sugar cookies, you will want to gather:

• 5 Icing bags
• 3 Couplers
• One Wilton #2 tip, one Wilton #3 tip, and one Wilton #69 tip
• Circle cookie cutter – cut in half for each slice, Wilton 101 cookie cutters set
• Apple cookie cutter
• Red, green, yellow, and brown gel food dye
• Palette knife
• Ingredients for a crusting buttercream – I used my delicious apple buttercream recipe
• Ingredients for sugar cookie dough

Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up the Icing Bags

Easy No Chill No Spread Sugar Cookie Dough

These classic vanilla cut out sugar cookies are so easy! There is no need to put these into the refrigerator before baking - simply mix, roll, cut out, and bake all at once!

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: No Chill No Spread Sugar Cookie Dough

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 24 cookies depending on the size of your cookie

Author: Leah Buehler

Equipment

• Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
• Measuring Bowls & Spoons

Ingredients

• 1 cup cold salted butter cut into cubes
• 1 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 egg
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large bowl, mix your flour and baking powder together. When measuring the flour, make sure to scoop up the flour with a spoon and add it to your measuring cup, one spoonful at a time. This helps obtain the correct amount of flour without needing to weigh it. Once you have a cup, level it out by running a knife across the top of the measuring cup. Then, add it to the large mixing bowl and repeat for the remaining flour. Set the mixture of flour and baking powder aside for a minute.
• In your electric mixer, combine the sugar and butter using the paddle attachment until they are creamed together.
• Add in your egg and vanilla extract and mix to combine.
• Slowly add in one cup (or whatever your mixer can handle) at a time of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. The mixture should be slightly sticky but still form a nice ball.
• On a floured surface, roll out the dough to about a 1/4 of an inch thick & cut out your cookies. A great tip is to flour your rolling pin and any cookie cutters you may be using. Transfer the cut out cookies to a baking sheet lined with a  silicone mat using a large flat spatula.
• Bake for about 10 minutes and let cool on the baking sheet. The dough will be done when the center of the dough doesn’t look wet and the edges are golden.

Notes

Place in an air tight container in the freezer if you aren't decorating these cookies within 24 hours. Allow the cookies to come back to room temperature before frosting. Find my crusting buttercream recipe here: Crusting Buttercream Icing for Sugar Cookies and my tips for getting started with decorating buttercream sugar cookies here: How to Decorate Buttercream Sugar Cookies for Beginners 

Crusting Apple Buttercream Recipe for Sugar Cookie Decorating

You'll love this apple buttercream frosting recipe that works perfectly for cookie decorating. This buttercream is made with real apples and still forms a crust to protect your cookie designs.

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: All American Buttercream Frosting, Apple Buttercream, Crusting Buttercream

Prep Time: 1 hour hour

Mixing Time: 5 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 5 minutes minutes

Author: Leah Buehler

Equipment

• Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
• Rubber Spatula
• Measuring cups and spoons

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ¼ cup unsweetened apple butter

Instructions

• In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the room temperature butter until soft and fluffy.
• To the stand mixer, add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract and mix on low speed until fully incorporated.
• Add in the apple butter. Mix on low until combined.

Notes

If you do not need a crusting buttercream, i.e. using it on a cake, you can reduce the sugar to 2-3 cups, depending on your taste preference. If you are needing a crusting buttercream, do not reduce the amount of sugar, as this is what makes it form a crust.

Roll, cut out, and bake your sugar cookies according to the recipe. To make the apple slice cookies, simply cut each circle cookie in half prior to baking.

Make your buttercream icing according to the recipe (if you don’t want apple, here’s my regular crusting buttercream recipe). Separate the prepared buttercream into five bowls:

• One bowl only needs a small amount for the apple stems & seeds, dye this bowl brown
• Another bowl can remain undyed, this is the apple slice & highlight color
• One bowl needs to be dyed red
• One bowl needs to be dyed yellow
• The last bowl needs to be dyed green, I went with a mossy green – mix some brown into the green frosting to create this color

Set up your icing bags as follows:

• Place the tip #69 into an icing bag and fill it with the green frosting.
• Place the tip #2 into an icing bag and fill it with the undyed/white buttercream.
• Place a coupler into each of the remaining three icing bags and fill them with the brown, red, and yellow frosting. You do not need to add the decorating tips yet.

Part 3: Decorating the Apple Sugar Cookies

Check out the video tutorial showing both the apple cookie and the apple slice cookie then follow the step-by-step photo series tutorials below.

How to Decorate Apple Cookies

1. Attach the tip #3 to the red bag of frosting and outline and fill in the majority of the apple on the apple cookies. You can be sloppy here, as you will fix it in the next step.
2. Use the palette knife to smooth out the red frosting.
   

   Liquitex Professional Freestyle Small Painting Knife, No. 1

   Check Price
   Do this step on a few apples before moving to step 3. You don’t want to do too many apples as the frosting should not crust before the next step.
3. Remove/rinse/dry the tip #3 from the red frosting and place it into the yellow frosting bag. Outline and fill in the rest of the apple.
4. With the palette knife, smooth the yellow out and into the red frosting. Mix some areas of red and yellow together to create a more realistic look.
5. Using the white frosting with tip #2, pipe an area of highlight and then smooth it with the palette knife.
6. Remove/rinse/dry the tip #3 from the yellow frosting and place it onto the brown frosting. Pipe out the apple stem, going slower while applying pressure as you get closer to the end to create a thicker end.
7. Use the green frosting with the tip #69 to pipe the apple leaf. To pipe leaves, hold the icing bag in the same spot while applying pressure to create a wider part and move faster to create a smaller part.

How to Decorate Apple Slice Cookies

1. Attach the tip #3 to the red bag of frosting and pipe out some lines along the curved edge of the apple slice cookie. Do this on a few of the apple slice cookies before moving to the next step. 
2. Remove/rinse/dry the tip #3 from the red frosting and place it onto the yellow frosting. Pipe lines onto the curved edge of the apple slice where the red was not placed.
3. Smooth this outline together with the palette knife, mixing the red and yellow, to create the apple edge. You can make this as thick or thin as you’d like. Use the palette knife to then clean up the edges and the inner curve.
4. Use the white frosting with the tip #2 to carefully outline the inner part of the curved red/yellow line. You may want to do two rows of outline. Then, fill in the rest of the apple slice with the white frosting.
5. Place the apple slice cookies into the freezer for 5-10 minutes. 
6. Grab one apple slice cookie from the freezer and smooth out the frosting to create a smooth finish. When getting close to the areas the white and red/yellow meet, move carefully to not mix the two together.
7. Continue grabbing one apple slice from the freezer at a time and repeat step 6 until all of the apple slice cookies are caught up.
8. Remove/rinse/dry the tip #3 from the yellow frosting and attach it to the brown frosting. Pipe three seeds onto each apple slice. I found this easiest to place the straight edge toward me, pipe a ball, then stop the pressure to create a teardrop shape.

Aren’t these apple decorated sugar cookies so fun? I love the more realistic look of them; it almost makes them feel vintage.

I know these are fall themed, but they would be great cookies for a first birthday party, baby shower, or even a harvest party.

If you want to package your apple decorated sugar cookies, check out my post that goes over how to package buttercream sugar cookies.

Save the Tutorial for These Apple Decorated Sugar Cookies

Use the image below to pin this tutorial for apple sugar cookies to your fall or baking board on Pinterest. Alternatively, use any of the social share icons on the top of the page to share it to your favorite social media site.