Easter Egg Cut Out Cookies
These adorable Easter egg sugar cookies are surprisingly easy to make with just a few ingredients! They'll really liven up any Easter dessert table.
Equipment
- 3-4 small icing bottles fitted with small round tips or piping bags will also work
Ingredients
Cut Out Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
Royal Icing *See note below
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 3 Tbsp meringue powder
- 7-9 Tbsp water
- Gel food color in Easter colors
Instructions
Make the Sugar Cookie Dough
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes).
- Add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat until fully combined.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing until a dough forms.
- Chill your dough for about 30 minutes in the freezer or 1 hour in the fridge. I like to roll my dough out flat on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to help it chill faster. You can also make two discs with your dough and wrap them in plastic wrap to chill.
Roll and Cut the Cookies
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Roll out the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4-inch thickness.
- Use an egg-shaped cookie cutter to cut out as many cookies as possible, re-rolling the scraps as needed.
- Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the edges are just lightly golden.
- Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the Royal Icing
- In a mixing bowl, combine the powdered sugar and meringue powder.
- Add 5 tablespoons of water and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until the icing is smooth. Add more water, a teaspoon at a time, until the icing reaches your desired consistency. For this, I would say you want your frosting a bit on the runny side but still thick enough that it sticks to the cookies.
Decorate the Cookies
- Background Color: Dip all of your cooled cookies face-down in your bowl of white royal icing. Place them icing-side up on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to dry.
- Pop Any Frosting Bubbles: If you see small bubbles forming in your white icing on your cookies, carefully pop them with a toothpick. Then, gently swirl the icing around to fill in the space left by the popped bubbles.
- Let Background Color Set: Wait at least 6 hours for your royal frosting to set before continuing to decorate.
- Store the rest of your icing: While your white royal icing is setting on your cookies, put the rest of the icing in an air-tight container with a lid so it doesn’t harden while you wait.
- Prepare Colored Frosting: After the white frosting on your cookies has set, give your leftover frosting a stir and it should be good as new. You might have to add a couple drops or so of water to “refresh” your royal icing. Then, divide up your leftover frosting into smaller bowls, one for each color you want to use to decorate. You should have enough to do 3 or 4 colors, as you don’t need a ton for any one color. Add a couple drops of food coloring to your individual bowls and stir well until the color is distributed.
- Put Colored Frosting in Small Icing Bottles: Put each color of frosting in a piping bag or a small icing bottle fitted with a small (I mean small!) round tip. I like to work with only one or two colors at a time, and then wash and switch out my icing bottles for multiple colors because I only have 2 small icing bottles and 2 small icing tips.
- Decorate Your Easter Egg Cut Out Cookies: Using the piping bags or small icing bottles of colored icing, draw pretty designs on your cookies. Then, let the cookies set again another couple hours for the decoration to dry.
Notes
Note about royal icing: This is my go-to royal icing recipe here! https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/royal-icing/