How to Decorate Gorgeous Buttercream Sunflower Sugar Cookies
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Are you ready to really impress people with your buttercream sugar cookie decorating? These buttercream sunflower sugar cookies are actually WAY easier than they may appear.
I’m going to give you the step-by-step photo series tutorial and video tutorial for these beautiful sugar cookies. You will be confident enough to make these yourself and no one will know how easy they were.
You will only need a few decorating tips if you are new to the hobby, otherwise you likely already have what you need.
Let’s get started on these buttercream sunflower sugar cookies!
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Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Buttercream Sunflower Sugar Cookies
To decorate these buttercream sunflower cookies, you will want to gather:
- 3 Icing bags
- One Wilton #4 tip and one #352 tip
- Two couplers
- Circle cookie cutter
- Yellow, brown, and black gel food dye
- Ingredients for a crusting buttercream & sugar cookie dough – found below in recipe card
Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up the Icing Bags
- Roll, cut out, and bake your cookies according to the recipe. Allow them to cool completely before frosting them.
- Make your buttercream icing according to the recipe card below. Then, separate the icing into 3 bowls, one of the bowls will only have about a half cup of frosting, another with a cup, and another with the remaining frosting.
- In the bowl with a half cup of frosting, add the brown gel food dye and mix until incorporated.
- In the bowl with a cup of frosting, add the black gel food dye and mix until incorporated.
- In the remaining bowl of frosting, add the yellow gel food dye.
- Set up your icing bags in this manner:
- Place the Wilton tip #352 into an icing bag and fill it with the yellow buttercream.
- Place a coupler into the other two icing bags and fill one with the brown buttercream and one with the black. You don’t need to add the tip yet.
Part 3: Decorating the Buttercream Sunflower Sugar Cookies
I have included both a video tutorial and a step-by-step photo series tutorial for these buttercream sunflower cookies. I recommend watching the video first to get an overall feel for the steps and then watching the photo series when it comes time to decorate.
By the way, you can find the tutorial for these pumpkins also included in the video here: Decorated Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
- Attach the tip #4 to the black bag of icing and pipe out a circle in the center of the cookie. The circle should be fairly big, as sunflowers have a big seed area. Then, fill it in a bit.
- Using the tip #352 on the yellow buttercream, pipe out a layer of petals around the circle. To pipe the petals, you will actually be piping leaves: hold the tip so that the “v” shape is not visible and you instead see a point.
- Pipe out another layer of petals around the circle.
- Remove/rinse/dry the tip #4 from the black icing and attach it to the brown bag of icing. Pipe dots of brown on the inside of the black circle just along the petal edge. Pipe two rows of brown.
- Make sure to do multiple cookies before removing/rinsing/drying the tip #4 from the brown bag and attaching it to the black. This will save time. Then, pipe dots to fill in the rest of the circle.
Aren’t these buttercream sunflowers just gorgeous? I am so excited for you to try them out and show off your skills to all your friends and family.
Buttercream Sunflower Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
- Rubber Spatula
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Medium Sized Mixing Bowl
- Lined aluminum cookie sheet parchment paper or silicone baking sheet
- Rolling Pin
- Circle cookie cutter
- 3 Icing bags
- Wilton tip #4 & Wilton tip #352
Ingredients
Buttercream Frosting
- ½ cup room temperature unsalted butter 4 ounces
- ½ cup room temperature salted butter 4 ounces
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
- 1-3 tbsp. whole milk
- yellow, brown, and black gel food dye
Sugar Cookies
- 1 cup cold salted butter cubed
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 cups all purpose flour measured with the scoop & level method
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 egg
- 1.5 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- Remove all of the butter from the refrigerator. You will make the sugar cookies first but the butter for the frosting needs to come to room temperature before mixing.
Sugar Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and prepare an aluminum cookie sheet by placing either parchment paper or a silicone baking mat on it.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the flour and baking powder and mix together. Set this aside.
- Cube a cup of salted butter and then, in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the cubed butter with the granulated sugar. Mix until creamed together well.
- To the stand mixer, add in the egg and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
- Slowly add in the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl to the stand mixer.
- Roll the dough out to 3/8" thick and use the cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. Place the cookies onto the prepared baking sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes or until the tops of the cookies no longer look wet. When baking the cookies, only bake 6-8 cookies at a time to leave proper space between each cookie to cook without spreading. Overcrowding the cookie sheet will cause spread.
Buttercream Frosting
- In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, add the room temperature salted and unsalted butter and mix on high until light and fluffy.
- Mix in the powdered sugar little by little. Add in the vanilla extract and milk about halfway through adding the sugar to help the frosting come together. Start with one tablespoon of milk and work up to three if needed, depending on the consistency you want. I like to aim for a peanut butter consistency or thinner.
- Pull out a half cup of buttercream and dye it brown. Pull out a cup of buttercream and dye that black. Color the remaining buttercream yellow.
- Place the tip #352 into an icing bag and fill it with the yellow buttercream. Place couplers into the other two icing bags and fill one with the brown buttercream and one with the black. You don't need to add the piping tips yet.
Decorating the Buttercream Sunflower Cookies
- Attach the tip #4 to the black frosting and draw a circle in the middle of the circle cookie. You want this to be fairly big, as sunflowers have a big seed area. Then, fill in the circle a bit. Do this step for all of the cookies.
- Use the yellow bag of frosting with the 352 tip attached to pipe two rows of petals going around the circle. Repeat this step for all of the cookies.
- Remove/rinse/dry the tip #4 from the black bag of icing and place it onto the brown bag. Pipe two rows of dots for the seeds on the inside of the circles, closest to the petals. Repeat this step for all of the cookies.
- Remove/rinse/dry the tip #4 from the brown bag of icing and place it onto the black bag. Pipe dots for the seeds in the remaining area of the circle for all of the buttercream sunflower cookies.
Notes
Make sure to follow me on YouTube for more cookie tutorials as well! You can also find more of my fall inspired buttercream sugar cookie tutorials here.
Save the Tutorial for These Buttercream Sunflower Sugar Cookies
Use the image below to pin this tutorial for buttercream sunflower cookies to your cookie decorating 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.
