These Easter egg sugar cookies are soft and buttery with a hint of vanilla. Pretty in pastel shades, they’re topped with my favorite royal icing, which helps create that crisp design. Gorgeous on the plate and quick to disappear, these springtime treats are eggs-tra special. See what I did there?
For these Easter egg cookies, I use my classic sugar cookies recipe. The recipe is loved by many readers and it’s actually one of the most popular recipes on this site. It’s one to keep in your back pocket, just like chocolate chip cookies and pie crust.
If you prefer a softer and creamier sugar cookie, you can also use the base of my soft cream cheese cookies with Nutella glaze.
For both recipes, just remember to chill the cookie dough AFTER you roll it out. It’s my secret to sugar cookie success! And feel free to select cookie cutters that make sense for your celebration—I prefer the egg shape (which could double as bunny ears as you can see below), but the spring-themed shapes like flowers and birds are pretty too.
Tell Me About these Easter Egg Sugar Cookies
- Texture: My traditional sugar cookies have soft, thick centers and crisp edges. It’s the same recipe we use for bunny sugar cookies too. To add more textural contrast, decorate with icing and sprinkles. These cookies stay soft for days, so you can save yourself time and make them ahead (see Note).
- Flavor: Irresistibly buttery and sweet with tones of warm vanilla and almond. Plus, they’re capped with a sweet icing for layers of flavor.
- Ease: The dough is surprisingly easy to put together, but if you want the cookies to look like the photo, you’ll need a few tools, such as the Easter-themed cookie cutters and piping tips for the royal icing. See the full list of Tools & Gadgets below.
- Time: I recommend setting aside an afternoon for making and decorating these cookies. The dough requires at least 1-2 hours to chill before baking, and you’ll need to leave time for cooling, making the icing, and then decorating—all told, it’s about 4 hours from start to finish, depending on the level of detail you want to achieve. Use the downtime to make another one of my spring dessert recipes! Or there are make-ahead options below, if you don’t have that much time all at once (see Note).
Order is Crucial to the Success of these Cookies
Order is important when you’re making decorated sugar cookies. Each layer of the cookie is divided into steps, and you should complete each step before moving on to the next one.
- Roll out the dough BEFORE you chill: Cookie dough is hard to roll out once you’ve chilled it. That’s why you must roll the dough out before you chill it. This makes it easier to cut out the cookies after chilling.
- Cool the cookies completely BEFORE icing: If you frost the cookies while they’re still warm, the icing could melt off or smudge and ruin the decorative design. A little patience will pay off.
- Base color needs to set BEFORE decorating: If you’re adding decorating details like the dots and stripes seen in my photos, let the base icing set first. This allows for a cleaner design. I usually place the decorated cookies on a baking sheet (or I decorate them directly on the baking sheet), make some room in the refrigerator, and stick the pan inside. The icing will set in 15-20 minutes. During that time, you can prepare the rest of your colors.
- Stack + wrap + gift + store. Once the icing layers have set, you can stack, wrap, gift, and store these cookies for a week. Can you believe that the cookies in the picture below are 3 weeks old? I froze them, let them thaw on the counter, and snapped a picture before I set them out for serving. There’s a little bit of a texture difference between frozen/thawed royal icing and freshly made (the icing tastes harder after it’s been frozen), but they’re good enough for me!
Tools & Gadgets for Easter Egg Sugar Cookies
- Easter egg cookie cutter – big fan of Ann Clark cookie cutters, but any egg shape cookie cutter will work.
- Wilton piping tip #5 or piping tip #4 – I used these piping tips for flooding the eggs with the base color.
- Wilton piping tip #2 or piping tip #1 –This is for the detail work like the polka dot and stripe design.
- Couplers – A coupler lets you use the same bag of icing when you need to switch decorating tips. For example, I used pink for flooding the Easter eggs with thicker tip #5. Then I switched to the thinner tip #2 for the pink designs on top of the yellow eggs. The coupler keeps the tip on the outside of the bag so you can easily switch back and forth.
- Piping bags (reusable or disposable) – I prefer the 16-inch size for decorating cookies, cakes, and cupcakes.
- Food coloring – I can’t stress how much I love this Americolor gel food coloring kit. I prefer gel food coloring because it won’t alter the royal icing’s consistency. We used sky blue, lemon yellow, violet, and fuchsia.
Choose Your Favorite Icing: Royal or Easy Glaze
You have two options for icing. Both are delicious, so choose whichever works best for you. My secret ingredient for royal icing is meringue powder.
Royal Icing. If you want your cookies to look like those in the photos, use my royal icing recipe. It’s my personal favorite for icing sugar cookies. Here are a few reasons you will love this recipe even if you’re not a royal icing fan:
- Meringue powder. Traditional royal icing recipes use raw egg whites, but I prefer meringue powder. It results in the same consistency and dries on the cookies within 1-2 hours. You can find meringue powder in most baking aisles, craft stores, or online.
- Softer is better. Royal icing can harden into a cement-like texture, but my recipe is on the softer side and still sets perfectly on the cookie.
- Versatility. This icing is easy to work with, especially on cookie-cutter sugar cookies like this recipe. If you prefer, add a few drops of gel food coloring to mix up the colors.
Or Use Easy Glaze Icing. Another option is my easy cookie icing, which I often halve and use on my Christmas sugar cookies. (Lately I make the full recipe so there’s plenty for piping.) The glaze is simpler than royal icing because you don’t need an electric mixer or the perfect icing consistency for success here. It’s thinner than royal icing, though, so it won’t have the sharp detail you get with royal icing decorations. It also takes a good 24 hours to dry.
More Easter Dessert Recipes
- Buttercream Candies
- Carrot Cake (or Carrot Cake Cupcakes!)
- Jellybean Sugar Cookies
- Coconut Cake
- Lemon Blueberry Cake
- Easter Cake
- Peanut Butter Eggs
Hop on over to my Easter recipes section if you need more inspiration.
Print
Easter Egg Sugar Cookies
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours, 45 minutes
- Yield: 24 3-inch cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These Easter egg sugar cookies are soft and buttery with a hint of vanilla. Pretty in pastel shades, they’re topped with my favorite royal icing, which helps create crisp Easter egg designs.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more as needed for rolling and work surface
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks or 170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional, but makes the flavor outstanding)*
- Royal Icing
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a handheld or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together on high speed until completely smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla, and almond extract (if using) and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. Dough will be a bit soft. If the dough seems too soft and sticky for rolling, add 1 more Tablespoon of flour.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal parts. Place each portion onto a piece of lightly floured parchment paper or a lightly floured silicone baking mat. With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness. Use more flour if the dough seems too sticky. The rolled-out dough can be any shape, as long as it is evenly 1/4-inch thick.
- Lightly dust one of the rolled-out doughs with flour. Place a piece of parchment on top. (This prevents sticking.) Place the 2nd rolled-out dough on top. Cover with plastic wrap or aluminum foil, then refrigerate for at least 1-2 hours and up to 2 days.
- Once chilled, preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2-3 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Carefully remove the top dough piece from the refrigerator. If it’s sticking to the bottom, run your hand under it to help remove it. Using a cookie cutter, cut the dough into shapes. Re-roll the remaining dough and continue cutting until all is used. Repeat with 2nd piece of dough. (Note: It doesn’t seem like a lot of dough, but you get a lot of cookies from the dough scraps you re-roll.)
- Arrange cookies on baking sheets 3 inches apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. If your oven has hot spots, rotate the baking sheet halfway through bake time. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
- Decorate: Prepare royal icing. Divide icing up between a few bowls. I used 4 colors: sky blue, lemon yellow, violet, and fuchsia. I left some icing white. Using piping tip #5, outline and flood with your base color(s). Allow icing to set (I place the cookies in the fridge so the icing sets quicker). Using piping tip #2 or piping tip #1, add decorative designs in different colors like polka dots, squiggles, plaid, or stripes. Icing will completely set in about 2 hours at room temperature.
- Enjoy cookies right away or wait until the icing sets to serve them. Once the icing has set, these cookies are great for gifting or for sending. Plain or decorated cookies stay soft for about 5 days when covered tightly at room temperature. For longer storage, cover and refrigerate for up to 10 days.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Plain or decorated sugar cookies freeze well up to 3 months. Wait for the icing to set completely before layering between sheets of parchment paper in a freezer-friendly container. To thaw, thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature. You can also freeze the cookie dough for up to 3 months before rolling it out. Prepare the dough through step 3, divide in half, flatten both halves into a disk as we do with pie crust, wrap each in plastic wrap, then freeze. To thaw, thaw the disks in the refrigerator, then bring to room temperature for about 1 hour. Roll out the dough as directed in step 4, then chill as directed in step 5—no need to chill for 1-2 hours, 45 minutes should be plenty.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Rolling Pin | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Easter Egg Cookie Cutter | Cooling Rack | Meringue Powder | Food Coloring | Wilton Piping Tip #1 | Wilton Piping Tip #2 | Wilton Piping Tip #5 | Couplers | Piping Bags (Reusable or Disposable) | Coarse Sugar
- Alternative Cookie Recipe: You could also use my cream cheese sugar cookie recipe.
- Flavors: I love flavoring this cookie dough with 1/2 teaspoon almond extract as listed in the ingredients above. For lighter flavor, use 1/4 teaspoon. Instead of the almond extract, try using 1 teaspoon of maple extract, coconut extract, lemon extract, or peppermint extract. Or add 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon. If using lemon extract, you can also add 1 Tablespoon lemon zest.
- Bunny Ears: divide royal icing in half. Tint half pink with 1-2 small drops fuchsia. Using piping tip #5, outline and flood with plain white icing. Allow icing to set (I place the cookies in the fridge so the icing sets quicker). Using the same piping tip, top with fuchsia icing, leaving a white outline underneath. Top with coarse sugar sprinkles.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Keywords: Easter Egg Sugar Cookies
Love these but I’m getting like half the amount of cookie yield?! I use the cookie cutter linked here too.
I want to amend my earlier email. After looking at the site again, it would appear that I printed up the recipes prior to the typo being fixed. I made them both ways by the way and were really yummy. The dough was just a bit harder to work with in the dough with extra butter.
THANKS!
Joan
★★★★★
I need to make a lot of cookies and freeze them prior to Easter. Will the frosting color fade if I freeze them?
Hi Angie, see note #1 about how to freeze these cookies. The colors shouldn’t fade. Enjoy!
Hi Sally!
If I wanted to add a lemon flavor to these, what would you suggest? Thanks for always giving us the best recipes!
Hi Nicole, see our Best Sugar Cookies recipe for recipe notes on adding flavors — enjoy!
These cookies are AMAZING!
My cookies came out perfectly love your recipe
Hi there
Love your cookies. I have a question….can I use your sugar cookie dough to make cavity cookies?
Hope I get a reply shortly as I am making cookies to send to family.
Thank You
Hi Valerie, We haven’t tested it but don’t see why not. Let us know if you give it a try!
Hi Sally,
Thank you for sharing your recipe, the children and I had fun making and decorating these Easter cookies. I am glad I found a easy sugar cookie dough that actually turned out well and your royal icing recipe was a success.
Hi Sally, I love this recipe and get so many compliments on my cookies. Thank you. I just used this recipe for Shamrocks yesterday and am ready to get started on my Easter cookies now. I need to make A LOT of cookies. Can I double the recipe or should I make them in two separate batches? Oh, and I used your trick to bring butter to room temperature fast…what a brilliant idea! Thank you!!
★★★★★
Hi Maria! We’re so glad you love these cookies. We recommend making two separate batches instead of doubling for best results. Happy baking!
Hi! Just wondering where I’m going wrong will cut shapes out perfect but then when I re roll and place in fridge and then re cut after first batch has been cooked the shapes don’t hold or stay super high?
Hi Ash, I’m wondering if the re-rolled dough simply isn’t cold enough. Try leaving it in the refrigerator even longer – an easy fix for next time!
These look adorable! I’ve made your sugar cookies a few times and I love them, I was wondering if there is any way of flavour them without using artificial flavourings like almond or vanilla?
Thank you
Hi Evan! You can purchase these extracts as “pure” instead of imitation. I usually use pure. Citrus zest or dried culinary lavender are lovely additions as well.
Do you think it’s ok to add rainbow sprinkles into the mix for a funfetti cookie?
Yes, that should work!
Sally, These cookies look beautiful! I love your cream cheese sugar cookies and cream cheese frosting. Do you think I can use the cream cheese frosting recipe to pipe a similar look on these egg cutout cookies?
Thank you, Joanna! You can certainly use cream cheese frosting but it does very different than royal icing and it doesn’t dry hard. But you can definitely make them super cute using it 🙂