Easter Sugar Cookies are the best Easter Cookie Recipe! Use your favorite easter cookie cutters for a delicious, simple treat!
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If you're looking for the best Easter Cookie Recipe- you've found it! These Easter Sugar Cookies are so easy to make with only 7 ingredients.
They're perfect for decorating with royal icing, buttercream, or you can keep them simple and just use colored sugar.
Decorating Easter Cookies can be a fun holiday tradition to share with your family!
These Easter Sugar Cookies are seriously our favorite holiday dessert. We have them every year alongside Italian Cream Pie or Cadbury Egg Cookies. They're so delicious! Here's why we love them.
Why We Love Easter Cut Out Cookies
I'm biased, but I think these are the best sugar cookies. My mom and Gram have made these cookies every year for every holiday! These cookies are:
- Crunchy on the outside and super soft in the middle
- Very easy to make
- Adorable and perfect for decorating
Easter Cookies Ingredients
To make these easter sugar cookies you will only need 7 simple ingredients.
- granulated sugar
- softened salted butter - We only bake with salted butter. NEVER margarine! Leave the butter out for 1-2 hours before baking OR pop in the microwave in 10 second increments. DON'T melt your butter! It should be bendy and pliable, not hard
- an egg
- milk
- vanilla extract
- all purpose flour
- baking powder-make sure your baking powder is fresh!
You can find substitutions for all of these ingredients below
How to Make Easy Easter Cookies
- In a bowl cream softened butter & sugar.
- Add egg, milk, vanilla extract and food coloring if using.
- Stir in flour and baking powder until combined.
- Roll the dough to ⅙ inch thickness.
- Use your favorite cut out shapes and place on a greased or parchment lined baking sheet. Add sprinkles before baking.
- Bake for 5-8 minutes until lightly browned on edges.
Storing Easter Sugar Cookies
We recommend storing these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature or in the refrigerator.
How long can you keep cut out sugar cookies? Up to 2 weeks if stored correctly. These cookies stay fresh in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks (if you don't eat them all before then!)
Can you freeze cut out sugar cookies? Yes you can! Freeze in an airtight container or ziploc bag for up to 3 months for maximum freshness. We recommend freezing without frosting. Colored sugar can bleed into the cookies when frozen - but it won't affect the taste!
substitutions for easter cookie recipe:
We usually love to provide you with substitutions for our recipes -but sadly can't provide many substitutions for this recipe. We don't recommend swapping ingredients.
Cookie Cutters: You can use this recipe with any cookie cutters you like. We use both big and small ones, and this recipe is great for any holiday.
Food Coloring: You could add a few drops of food coloring to this dough to dye it. This is the food coloring we like.
Sprinkles: Use any sprinkles you like on these cookies!
Butter: We always use salted butter when baking. You can sub unsalted butter but it won't be as tasty.
Doubling: This recipe can easily be doubled, but it makes 6 dozen as is - so that's a lot of cookies if you're doubling it!
Gluten Free: We haven't tried making these gluten free, but I think it might work with 1:1 flour. If you try it, let us know.
Butter/Sugar: We can't offer substitutions for butter or sugar in this recipe. I don't recommend swapping with any ingredients.
Decorating Easter Cookies
You can decorate these cookies however you'd like. I prefer to keep them simple and use a little food coloring or colored sugar. Here are some suggestions:
- Food Coloring- You can keep the cookies white and add green sprinkles, or color them with food coloring.
- Colored Sugar - We used classic colored sugar on these cookies.
- Sprinkles - You can use regular sprinkles on these cookies.
- Royal Icing- We don't use royal icing but you can! Here's a link to a royal icing recipe.
- Powdered Sugar Icing: Mix powdered sugar and milk until it's a thick consistency. You can dye it with food coloring and use a piping bag (or ziploc bag) to ice. 1 cup of powdered sugar to 1-2 tablespoons of milk. Add more milk until it's thick but only add a TINY bit because it gets thin quickly!
Easter Cookie Cutters:
There are many different options on Amazon for Easter Cookie Cutters. Michael's and Hobby Lobby also have options! I think metal cookie cutters work best. Here are some of my favorites:
- 9 Piece Metal Cookie Cutters- super cute! Includes a bunny, egg, butterfly + more
- 5 Piece Metal Cookie Cutters
- 6 Piece Metal Cookie Cutters
If you want a festive Easter dessert without cookie cutters, try our Sugar Cookie Bars with festive sprinkles on top!
Our favorite Easter Cookie Tools:
There are a few tools that will help you to make the best sugar cookies ever!
Rolling Pin I HIGHLY recommend this rolling pin. It has little wheels on the side that allow you to control the thickness of the dough. No guessing or rolling some cookies out too thin or too thick. It's under $20 on amazon.
Thin Baking Sheets- My gram always bakes her cookies on thin cookie sheets. They conduct heat faster! I personally like the thicker ones, but either works.
Parchment Paper-I always bake all cookies on parchment paper, while my gram uses greased cookie sheets. It's up to you!
Colored Sugar- Any sprinkles or colored sugar will work with these cookies. These are our favorite brand.
Food Coloring - This is the only food coloring we recommend. This recipe doesn't require food coloring but you can dye the dough if you'd like!
Piping Bag (only for icing) If you want to ice the edges of these cookies you can use a piping bag or even a plastic ziploc bag with the corner cut very small.
More Desserts You'll Love
- Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies
- Air Fryer Sugar Cookies
- Mini Cadbury Egg Cookies
- Raspberry Lemon Bundt Cake
- Lemon Cool Whip Cookies
- St Patrick's Day Cookies
Easter Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter softened-2 sticks
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 and prepare a greased or parchment lined baking sheet.
- In a bowl cream softened butter & sugar.
- Add egg, milk and vanilla extract.
- Stir in flour and baking powder until combined.
- On a floured surface, roll the dough to ¼ - ⅙ inch thickness. We recommend this rolling pin for perfectly rolled cookies.
- Use your favorite cut out shapes to cut out the cookies. Use a thin metal spatula to transfer cookies to a greased or parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with colored sugar or sprinkles if you like.
- Bake for 5-8 minutes until browned on edges
- Cookie Baking Tip: Add a piece of scrap dough to your cookie sheet. You can lift this scrap piece to check if the bottom of your cookies is golden brown rather than damaging one of your perfect cut out cookies!
- Cool the cookies on a sheet for 3-4 minutes until they’re firm, then move to a wire cooling rack to finish cooling
- Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks for freshness!
- Note: Once you roll the dough/put your cookies on the sheet - gather your scraps, form into a ball and re roll. Don’t waste!
Notes
Measure your ingredients correctly - It is super important to measure your ingredients correctly, specifically the flour! Check out this tutorial on how to measure flour correctly. Use flour when rolling out the dough. Make sure to flour your work surface and the top of the dough/rolling pin when rolling out the cookie dough. Otherwise the dough will stick/be difficult to transfer the cut out cookies to a baking sheet How long can you keep cut out sugar cookies? Up to 2 weeks if stored correctly. These cookies stay fresh in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks (if you don't eat them all before then!)
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