How to Decorate Cute Easter Sugar Cookies

Easter is quickly approaching this year! I figured with it being a leap year we’d have lots of time between Valentine’s Day cookies and Easter sugar cookies but that is just not the case.

So, today I am bringing you this super cute Easter sugar cookie set. Included in the tutorial are fun Easter basket sugar cookies, Easter bunny sugar cookies, and Easter chick sugar cookies.

The sprinkles are really what make these cookies. I am using Foliay sprinkles. If you haven’t checked them out, make sure you read my review for them in Part 4 of this post.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I was gifted five samples of my choice from Foliay for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Please know, I only recommend products I believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission.

Follow along to see the full step-by-step video and photo series tutorials for these cute Easter sugar cookies.

This post may contain affiliate links to Amazon, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. None of the links to Foliay are affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure for further information.*

Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Easter Sugar Cookies

To decorate these soft Easter sugar cookies with buttercream frosting, you will want to gather:

• 7 Icing bags
• One Wilton #2 tip, one Wilton #3 tip, one #5 tip, one #18 tip (or any of Wilton’s other small star tips would work), one Wilton #44 tip (or a small petal tip if you don’t have a 44), and one PME 1.5 tip
• 5 couplers
• Easter egg cookie cutter, bunny cookie cutter, and Easter basket cookie cutter
• Purple, pink, yellow, orange, brown, and black gel food dye
• Foliay sprinkles and sanding sugar – specific sprinkle mixes and sanding sugars listed below
• Palette knife (I love this one!)
• Small plate
• Ingredients for a crusting buttercream & sugar cookie dough – found below in recipe card

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

Use the recipe card below for the basic recipe.

Easter Sugar Cookies with Buttercream Frosting

These Easter sugar cookies are buttery and soft, topped with a vanilla buttercream frosting and Foliay sprinkles & sanding sugar.

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Buttercream Sugar Cookies, Easter Sugar Cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Decorating Time: 2 hours hours

Total Time: 2 hours hours 40 minutes minutes

Servings: 18 cookies, depending on the size of the cookie cutter

Author: Leah Buehler

Equipment

• Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
• Rubber Spatula
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Medium Sized Mixing Bowl
• Lined aluminum cookie sheet parchment paper or silicone lined baking sheet
• Rolling Pin
• Cookie cutters and tools see part 1 on this post for the specific tools needed

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

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.
• Follow the directions in Part 2 for the specific way you will divide the buttercream and set up the icing bags.

How to Decorate the Easter Sugar Cookies

• Please refer to Part 3 of this blog post for all three cookie decorating tutorials.

Notes

These buttercream sugar cookies are room stable for a few days on the counter. Otherwise, store in the freezer in an airtight container until ready to use, or for up to three months. You can also freeze the undecorated cookies and buttercream frosting three months in advance to decorating.

 

1. 1. Roll, cut out, and bake your sugar cookies according to the recipe.
   2. Make your buttercream icing according to the recipe and separate it into seven bowls:
      • Dye about 1/8th cup of frosting black
      • Dye about 1/4 cup frosting orange
      • Dye about 1/4 cup frosting pink
      • Divide the rest of the frosting up into equal bowls and dye them purple, brown, yellow, and one undyed or use white food dye if preferred.
   3. Place the PME tip 1.5 into an icing bag and fill it with the black buttercream frosting.
   4. Place the Wilton tip #44 into an icing bag and fill it with the pink buttercream frosting.
   5. Place a coupler into each of the remaining icing bags and fill each bag with a frosting color. You can leave the decorating tips off of the couplers/bags for now.

Part 3: Decorating the Easter Sugar Cookies

Check out the video tutorial showing all three decorated Easter sugar cookies then follow the step-by-step photo series tutorials below.

How to Decorate the Easter Basket Sugar Cookies

1. Attach the tip #5 to the white bag of frosting and outline and fill in a half circle right above the top of the basket. Make sure to leave some space at the top for the basket handle and empty space.
2. Pour some of Foliay’s Easter Basket Sprinkle Mix onto a small plate. Flip and press the sugar cookie into the sprinkle mix. I found it best to pull all the eggs out of the sprinkles for the flip and then individually add them for the best placement.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 for all of the Easter basket sugar cookies and then dispose of any remaining sprinkles on the plate (or pour them back into the sprinkle bottle, I won’t judge!).
4. Attach the tip #3 to the brown icing bag. Pipe the basket weave by making small X shapes.
5. Lastly, use the pink frosting with tip #44 to pipe a bow.

How to Decorate the Easter Bunny Sugar Cookies

1. Attach the tip #5 to the purple bag of frosting. Outline and fill in the Easter bunny, leaving a bit of space around the edges.
2. Pour some of Foliay’s Purple Sparkling Sanding Sugars onto a small plate. Flip and press the cookie into the sanding sugar. Repeat steps 1 & 2 for all the Easter bunny cookies before moving to step 3.
3. Attach the tip #3 to the purple icing bag and outline the bunny shape. I like to leave a bit of space on the edges to show the sanding sugar rather than piping all the way to the edge.
4. Attach the tip #18 to the purple icing bag to pipe a small swirl onto the bunny for his tail.

How to Decorate the Easter Chick Sugar Cookies

1. Attach the tip #5 to the yellow buttercream frosting. Outline the shape of the chick, making sure to leave space between the edges of the cookie.
2. Pour some of Foliay’s Yellow Sparkling Sanding Sugars onto a small plate. Flip and press the sugar cookie into the sanding sugar. Repeat steps 1 & 2 on all of the Easter chick sugar cookies before moving to step 3.
3. Attach the tip #3 to the yellow frosting and outline the chick’s head and wings.
4. Attach the tip #2 to the orange frosting and pipe the chick’s beak. Use the black frosting with the PME 1.5 tip in it to pipe the chick’s eyes.
5. Rinse and dry the tip #5 that was used for the yellow frosting in step 1 and attach it to the white frosting. Outline and fill in the Easter egg.
6. Use a palette knife to smooth the Easter egg.
   • Pro tips: If preferred, place the cookie into the freezer for about five minutes prior to smoothing if you are worried about messing up the chick. Also, try to make the white frosting as thick in height as the chick for the best appearance. I used two layers of white frosting to achieve this look.

Part 4: My Review of Foliay Sprinkles

You will probably find it no surprise here but I am loving the Foliay products I was gifted. If you didn’t already know, they also gifted me some Christmas sprinkles which you can find on my Burgundy & Gold Christmas Sugar Cookies. The products I used in this tutorial are as follows:

1. Easter Basket Sprinkle Mix
2. Purple Sparkling Sanding Sugars
3. Yellow Sparkling Sanding Sugars

I will start by saying that all of the Easter sprinkle mixes on Foliay’s site are soooo cute. Seriously, I even got a couple other sprinkle mixes which I used on my Easter egg surprise sugar cookies.

The texture of the sprinkles is perfect and I love the size of the sprinkles for sugar cookies. Even the larger pieces, like the eggs, were absolutely perfect for my standard sized Easter egg basket cookie cutter.

Speaking of the eggs, they were not only delicious but I loved the detail on them. If you didn’t notice in the photos, the eggs are colored differently on each side. This made it sooo easy to customize how I wanted the Easter basket cookies to look – absolutely love them!

This was my first time using Foliay’s sanding sugars and they did not disappoint. I highly recommend getting the sparkly ones like I did, so beautiful. My four year old son said that he loved the sparkly cookies the best. The texture and taste were great too. 

All in all, I am sure I will be ordering from Foliay in the near future. The taste and appearance of everything I used was perfect.

Save the Tutorial for These Easter Sugar Cookies

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