Decorated Spring Garden Sugar Cookies for Easter – Full Tutorial

Easter is early this year and I have the cutest spring garden sugar cookies for Easter to share with you.

These Easter garden cookies feature a bunny harvesting carrots, complete with a wheelbarrow cookie, Easter bunny cookie, carrot cookie, and watering can cookie.

The wheelbarrow is filled with carrots, the watering can has a fun flower, and the bunny is holding onto a carrot.

This set would be so fun for an Easter Sunday celebration that is a bit more unique than the typical-but-still-cute Easter egg sugar cookies.

Let’s get started!

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Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for Spring Garden Sugar Cookies for Easter

To decorate these spring garden cookies, you will want to gather:

• 8 Icing bags
• One PME 1.5 tip, one Wilton #2, #3, #5, #7 (or a #10 or #12 if that’s what you have), and #44 tip
• 8 couplers
• Carrot cookie cutter, watering can cookie cutter, wheelbarrow cookie cutter, and gardening bunny cookie cutter 
• Green, orange, brown, pink, blue, and black gel food dye
• Palette knife (I love this one for cookies!)
• 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 sugar cookie and buttercream frosting recipes.

Spring Garden Sugar Cookies for Easter

These sugar cookies for Easter are so fun to decorate, display, and eat. Topped with vanilla buttercream, you will have the perfect soft sugar cookie.

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Buttercream Sugar Cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Decorating Time: 3 hours hours

Total Time: 3 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 Sugar Cookies for Easter

• Please refer to Part 3 of this blog post for all of the 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.

 

Make your buttercream icing according to the recipe and separate it into eight bowls:

• four bowls only needs about 1/8-1/4 cup of frosting (the smallest amount you can fit into an icing bag with a coupler to still pipe comfortably with) – dye one black, one light pink, one dark orange (mix orange with brown gel dye), and one white (undyed)
• the remaining four bowls can be separated into equal amounts – dye one orange, one green, one blue, and one brown

Add each of these colors into their own icing bags with a coupler. You don’t need to add the tips yet.

Part 3: Decorating the Garden Sugar Cookies for Easter with Buttercream Frosting

Check out the video tutorial showing the overall process for decorating the spring garden cookies then follow the step-by-step photo series tutorial below.

When following the tutorial, make sure to do each step on all the cookies prior to going to the next step. Often times, the next step will involve using the same tip size but on a new icing bag. Make sure to rinse & dry the tip before placing onto the new color.

How to Decorate the Carrot Cookies with Buttercream

1. Attach the Wilton tip #5 to the orange buttercream and outline/fill in the bottom part of the cookie.
2. Attach the tip #2 to the dark orange buttercream and pipe some lines into some of the indents of the piping on the carrot.
3. Attach the tip #2 to the green frosting to pipe some of the carrot greens. You will use a smaller tip to pipe more of the green so only do a bit for each carrot.
4. Remove the tip #2 from the green icing and replace it with the tip #1.5. Pipe in the rest of the greenery creating branches off of the first lines.

How to Decorate the Watering Can Cookies with Buttercream

1. Attach the Wilton tip #5 to the blue buttercream to outline and fill in the water can cookies. Make sure to leave a space for the handle.
2. Smooth the buttercream using the palette knife. If smoothing has proven to be a challenge for you after practicing a bit, check out my online cookie decorating class that teaches 5 methods to smooth buttercream on cookies.
3. Remove the tip #5 and replace it with the PME 1.5 tip. Outline the shape of the watering can and then pipe the flower detail.

How to Decorate the Spring Garden Wheelbarrow Cookies with Buttercream

1. Attach the Wilton tip #3 to the blue frosting to outline and fill in the area of the wheelbarrow bucket.
2. Use the palette knife to smooth the blue frosting.
3. Attach the tip #44 to the brown frosting to pipe the wheelbarrow handles.
4. Replace the 44 tip with the tip #5 to pipe the wheelbarrow handlebars. Attach the tip #7 to the black frosting and pipe a circle for the tire. Make sure to hold the tip close to the cookie to create a flat top, rather than a rounded log.
5. Use the blue frosting, still with tip #3, to draw the wheelbarrow legs.
6. Attach the tip #3 to the orange frosting to pipe carrots in the wheelbarrow. You don’t need to outline the carrot shape, just pipe the back & forth lines and decrease the width as you get toward the end of the carrot.
7. Attach the tip #2 to the dark orange frosting to pipe the dark lines onto the carrot.
8. Use the tip #1.5 on the green frosting to pipe the carrot details in the same way described in the section above for decorating the carrot cookies.

How to Decorate the Gardening Bunny Cookies with Buttercream

1. 1. Attach the tip #4 to the brown frosting to outline the top part of the bunny. Leave a space for the white detail on the bunny. You can also just draw the whole face and then erase the part that the white will be.
   2. Attach the tip #4 to the white frosting and outline and fill in the area that will be white on the bunny.
   3. Use the palette knife to smooth the white frosting.
   4. Fill in the brown frosting and then smooth it with the palette knife.
   5. Outline and fill in the pink ear on the bunny plus a pink dot on the cheek using the tip #4. Then, smooth out the pink frosting.
   6. Attach the tip #1.5 to the black frosting to pipe the bunny’s nose and eye.
   7. Use the tip #3 on the orange frosting to pipe a carrot shape, then use the tip #2 on the dark orange to pipe in the dark details on the carrot.

1. Use the tip #1.5 on the green frosting to pipe the carrot greenery.
2. Use the brown frosting with the tip #4 to outline and fill in the bunny’s arm over the carrot. Then, smooth out the arm with the palette knife.
3. Draw some more carrots using the same steps (7 & 8) under the bunny. Then, use the tip #1.5 on the green frosting to pipe in some grass.

These sugar cookies for Easter are so fun with their spring garden element. If you need more Easter cookie ideas, make sure to check out my other Easter sugar cookie tutorials.

If you want to bring these cookies to a party, make sure to read my post on how to package and transport buttercream sugar cookies.

Save the Tutorial for These Spring Garden Cookies

Use the image below to pin the sugar cookies for Easter tutorial to your holiday 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.