Beginner-Friendly Decorated Pumpkin Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
Learn how to decorate these super-cute pumpkin sugar cookies with this easy tutorial. Buttercream frosting is softer than royal icing and is a real crowd pleaser!
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Servings: 18 cookies, depending on the size of the cookie cutter
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
- Pumpkin cookie cutter
- 2 Icing bags
- Wilton tip #4 & Wilton tip #12, plus two couplers
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. Color the remaining buttercream orange.
- Place couplers into the two icing bags and fill one with the brown buttercream and one with the orange. Place the tip #4 on the brown bag of icing and the tip #12 on the orange bag.
Decorating the Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
- Attach the tip #4 to the brown frosting and pipe the stems for all of the pumpkin cookies.
- Use the orange frosting to pipe the pumpkin's shape. You can find more detailed instruction and tips in the step-by-step photo series instructions above the recipe card.
- Remove/rinse/dry the tip #4 from the brown bag of icing and place it onto the orange. Pipe dots for the bumps.
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.
Check out the photo series tutorial and video tutorial above this recipe tag for more instruction.