Easter Egg Cookie Decorating Ideas – The holiday to make and decorate sugar cookies is Easter. Beautiful pale colors, intricate designs, and colorful variations. Easter egg sugar cookies are the definition of edible art.

Easter Egg Sugar Cookies are golden yellow, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and decorated with cute designs using meringue-based royal icing. And who said art has to be complicated? Indeed, you don’t have to be Picasso to create a masterpiece. Just draw a few swirls here, a few dots there, and some stripes to create something beautiful.

Easter Egg Cookie Decorating Ideas

Once the Easter egg sugar cookies are baked and completely cooled, you can start making the royal icing. Traditionally, royal icing is made with raw egg whites, but you can actually use meringue powder instead of egg whites (like we did).

Last Minute Easy Easter Egg Cookies

Tip: Once you have made the icing, it is recommended to divide it into small parts so that you can mix several different colors. When the icing is not in use, cover the bowl with a wet towel to prevent it from drying out.

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Cute, delicious, and easy to make, Easter Egg Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing are the perfect treat to make this Easter. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.

Easter Egg Cookies

This post was originally published in 2017. Completely updated with new photos and clearer descriptions.

A step-by-step program that teaches food bloggers how to grow and expand their blog into a full-time business. These festive Easter cookies are soft and buttery with hints of vanilla and almond. Beautiful in pastel colors, covered in my favorite royal icing and decorated to look like a PEEPS-inspired bunny complete with Easter eggs, marshmallow tails and carrots. For simpler designs, like rabbits or carrots, you can use my easy glitter cookie icing. This spring flavor that looks beautiful on a plate and disappears quickly is the Egg Tiger Special. See what I did there?

Easter Basket Cookie Cups {+video}

(If you prefer a soft and creamy style of sugar cookies, use today’s decorating inspiration for cream cheese cookie cutters with Nutella frosting.)

Let me explain why we do this. For example, when making double chocolate chip cookies, you need to chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator to prevent it from spreading too much. For today’s Easter cookies, roll out the dough immediately after making it and store the rolled out dough in the refrigerator. (At this point, the dough is too soft to cut into shapes.) Be careful not to let the cookie dough cool before rolling it out, as it will become too cold and hard. I split the dough in half before rolling it out, and I highly recommend doing the same. The smaller the amount of dough, the easier it is to handle.

Here’s another trick! Roll out the cookie dough directly onto a silicone baking mat or parchment paper for easy transfer to the refrigerator. Pick up the whole thing, put it on a baking sheet, and put it in the fridge. If you don’t have enough space in your refrigerator for two baking trays, you can place the rolled out dough one on top of the other (with parchment paper or a baking mat in between).

The cookies stay soft for days, so if you want to save time, they’re perfect for making ahead Easter desserts so you don’t lose any sweets. Store in an airtight container at room temperature until ready to display.

Polka-dot Easter Egg Cookies

I will link to the two frosting options in the recipe below. You can use any icing for today’s Easter cookies, but how you want them to look depends on your personal taste. (And how much effort are you willing to put in!)

The cookies in today’s photo used royal icing. If you want to skip both cookie cutters and icing, try these Jelly Bean Sugar Cookies instead

Again, use royal icing to give the Easter egg shaped cookies a nice detail. Divide the batch of royal icing into several bowls and use gel food coloring to give the icing different colors. Use a Wilton round icing tip #4 to outline and fill in and allow the layers to dry completely. I usually place the decorated cookies on a baking sheet (or decorate them directly on the baking sheet), then carve out a space in the fridge and stick the mold in there. The icing will harden in about 30 minutes.

Next, use Wilton Icing Tip #2 or Icing Tip #1 for the lines and dots. This is also used to create the fine lines of firework cookies.

Easter Basket Cookie Cups

Or use glitter-inspired cookie icing for simple decorations. You can use it to make simple decorative cookies like these Christmas sugar cookies, or it’s perfect for the rabbits and carrots in today’s photo. (Of course, you can use royal icing instead of rabbit or carrots.)

For the bunny, I kept the icing white, sprinkled with powdered sugar while the icing was wet, and cut a mini marshmallow in half for the tail. I left the roots as icing white and added green granulated sugar to the stems. Next, I colored some of the icing melons on the carrots themselves.

For the bunny, you can also omit the marshmallow tail and add eyes and a nose using melted chocolate or brown icing. So cute!

STACKING, WRAPPING, GIFTING, AND/OR STORAGE: Once the icing layer has set, these Easter cookies can be stacked, wrapped, gifted, shipped and/or stored for a week. Can you believe that some of the cookies in these photos are 3 weeks old? I froze them, thawed them on the counter, and took a photo before serving them. There’s a slight difference in texture between frozen and thawed icing and freshly made icing (both icings are a little *hard* after freezing), but no one seems to care. …or don’t seem to notice.

Easter Cookies (decorated & Festive!)

You can also enjoy buttercream egg treats and peanut butter eggs. For more delicious ideas, check out my Easter Recipes section, Easter Brunch Recipes post, or Easter Dessert Recipes post. 🙂

These festive Easter cookies are soft and buttery with a hint of vanilla and almond. It’s beautiful in pastel colors, covered in my favorite royal icing, and decorated with Easter eggs, a PEEPS-style bunny with a marshmallow tail, and a simple carrot. For simpler designs, like rabbits or carrots, you can use my easy glitter cookie icing.

Sally McKechnie is a professional food photographer, cookbook author, and baker. Her kitchen-tested recipes and thorough step-by-step tutorials give readers the knowledge and confidence to bake bread from scratch. Decorate the brightly colored Easter egg sugar cookie with Sally on it with royal icing. This easy cookie recipe is so delicious for the holidays!

– 1 cup unsalted butter – 1 cup granulated sugar – 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract – 1 large egg – 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour – 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder – 1/2 teaspoon salt

Learn How To Decorate Easter Cookies + Bonus Tips

Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C or 160°C fan oven. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until smooth, light in color and creamy. Add vanilla and eggs and mix again until eggs are incorporated. However, don’t overmix.

Add flour, baking powder, and salt and mix again until just combined. Scrape down the sides with a spatula to remove any dry flour residue. The cookies will pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Divide the dough into 4 parts and roll each part with a rolling pin to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out with a cookie cutter and transfer to a cookie sheet.

Easter Egg Cookie Ideas

Bake for 8-9 minutes, flipping after 6 minutes to ensure even browning. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. nice