Snowflake No Spread Sugar Cookies
These delicious and soft vanilla no spread sugar cookies are perfect for snowflake cut out cookies and decorating with icing. Bonus - no chilling time! Decorated with 2 different icings, and dipped in sanding sugar sprinkles, these snowflake cookies are sure to be a hit!
Equipment
- oven
- electric stand mixer with bowls (recommended) or electric hand mixer, either mixer should have both paddle and whisk attachments (You need a mixing bowl and beater attachment for the cookie dough. You will need a mixing bowl and whisk attachment for the royal icing. You will need a mixing bowl and paddle attachment for the buttercream.)
- 2 large cookie baking sheets
- parchment paper or silicone baking mats
- measuring cups/spoons and/or digital food scale
- Rolling Pin
- snowflake cookie cutters in varying shapes and sizes
- several cooling racks
- several mixing bowls and small 2-4 cup sized bowls for icing
- toothpicks or skewers (To marble to royal icing and pop any air bubbles in the icing after the cookie is dipped. You could also use a butter knife or thin tip utensil)
- food gel coloring
- piping bag
- small open circle writer piping tip
Ingredients
No Spread Sugar Cookie Dough
- 2 cups unsalted butter (453g) (4 sticks, softened at room temperature)
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar (270g)
- ½ cup powdered sugar (64g)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste (you can also reduce the vanilla by ½ teaspoon and add ½ teaspoon of almond extract instead if desired)
- 6 cups all purpose flour (840g) (plus ¼ cup additional for dusting the work surface)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
Royal Icing
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup meringue powder
- ½ teaspoon clear vanilla extract
- 5-8 tablespoons water (warm)
Vanilla Buttercream
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks, softened)
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1-3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream (as needed to thin the buttercream)
- pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
Toppings
- sanding sugar sprinkles (I used white in the snowflake cookies pictured.)
- edible glitter (I love The Sugar Art brand in White Diamond.)
Instructions
Make the Sugar Cookie Dough
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the softened room temperature butter (around 65-67°F), granulated sugar, and powdered sugar together for 3 minutes.2 cups unsalted butter (453g), ½ cup powdered sugar (64g), 1 ½ cups granulated sugar (270g)
- While the butter and sugar cream together until uniform, measure out the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.6 cups all purpose flour (840g), 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt
- Back to the stand mixer, scrape down the bowl, with the mixer on low, add in eggs and vanilla extract. Mix until combined well, around 1 minute. Scrape the bowl down.2 large eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- With the mixer on the lowest setting, slowly add in the flour mixture. The dough will form quickly after all the flour has been added in. Scrape the bowl down as needed during the process of adding the flour in. Once the flour is all mixed in, do not keep mixing and working the dough.
Cut Out and Bake the Sugar Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
- Dust a clean work surface with some of the additional flour and turn the sugar cookie dough out on it. Work with half of the dough at a time if you have a smaller work surface. Gently combine the dough with your hands to form a smooth flat cookie dough circle. Then place a sheet of parchment paper over top of the dough and using your rolling pin on top of the parchment paper, roll the dough out until it is around ⅜ inches thick. (You can also dust the top of the dough and the rolling pin with flour instead of doing the parchment paper trick, but the parchment paper trick helps us to not add additional unnecessary flour into the dough and it helps get super smooth cookie tops!)
- Dip your cookie cutter in some flour and cut out the cookies. Carefully transfer the cut out sugar cookies to a prepared baking sheet. Continue until all of the cookies have been cut out. You can rework and reroll the dough scraps to get a many cut out cookies as possible. Gently dust with flour as needed but try to avoid adding too much as this could change the consistency and texture of the cookie.
- Place cookie sheet on middle rack in the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes. Bake one tray at a time for best results. Avoid overbaking and remove cookies from the oven when the top of the cookie is no longer glossy. Once the tops are baked, they are done. Light golden on the edges is okay but you want to avoid browning! My cookies are fully baked at 8 minutes with little to no browning at all!As soon as you pull out your first tray of cookies, slide the next one in the oven. Repeat this process until all of your cut out sugar cookies are baked.Once I have my first baking sheet full of cookies, I will place them in the oven and then go back to roll out the rest of my cookie dough and cut more cookies. It seems a little bit like an assembly line process of cookies!
- Allow the baked cookies to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then gently transfer to a cooling rack to cool fully.
- Once cookies are fully cooled, you can eat them and enjoy them plain or decorate them with your favorite icing. If choosing to decorate, move on to the next set of instructions below!
Make the Royal Icing
- For the royal icing, place the powdered sugar and meringue powder in the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Mix to combine on low speed for 30 seconds. Then add in vanilla extract and ¼ cup of warm water. Whisk on medium speed until a thick icing forms with stiff peaks, about 3 minutes. Icing will be thick!
- Now you will need to thin out the icing as needed. I usually use up to an additional 4 tablespoons of warm water to get the consistency we are looking for in order to dip the cookies. To reach the proper icing consistency, add in 1 tablespoon of warm water at a time with the mixer on low speed. Mix well in between each tablespoon of water. You can always add more, but you cannot take it away, so error on the side of caution here when adding more water in.For dipping consistency, you want the icing to be thin enough to fall off a spatula, but thick enough where you can do the figure 8 test. This just means you can take a spoonful of icing and make the figure 8 into the bowl and it should disappear back in to the icing around 8 seconds time.
- Once desired 8 second consistency is desired (see notes in above blog post if more direction is needed), split ¼ cup of the icing into a separate bowl and add blue food coloring. Mix with a spatula until color forms. Place a damp piece of paper towel on top of the royal icing bowls to avoid the icing from drying out. Set aside until ready to use.
How to Make Marbled Royal Icing Dipped Sugar Cookies
- Prepare your work surface with lined plastic wrap and cooling racks on top. This makes the cleanup super easy and the plastic wrap will catch any excess icing that may drip off the cookies while they're drying.
- To marble the sugar cookies, place 1-2 cups of plain white royal icing in a medium sized bowl that is just a little bit wider than your largest cookie. I find the 4 cup sized Pyrex glass bowls work the best for me but any will do.
- Take a small spoonful of blue royal icing and drizzle it over top of the white royal icing. Then take a toothpick and swirl the colors around gently back and forth but avoid blending or mixing too much.
- Then, hold your sugar cookie by the outside edges and dip it face down straight into the marbled icing. Slowly lift it up out of the icing and angle it so that the excess icing runs off the cookie. Give the cookie a gentle shake to encourage the icing to level out and once it stops running off, flip the cookie upwards quickly ending the stream of icing and set it on a cooling rack to dry. Take your toothpick and pop any air bubbles you may see settling on the iced cookie. You may not need to do this much if your icing consistency is good. If your icing is too thin, you could develop more air bubbles.
- Repeat with the next cookie. Add additional blue or white icing to the marbled icing and swirl as needed. Continue dipping until all of the cookies are iced. Each cookie will be unique and beautiful!
- Allow the cookies to dry on the cooling racks for minimum of 2 hours before proceeding to adding the buttercream outlined snowflake design. Drying times vary and could take longer depending on your environment. I like to keep some of the cookies iced with royal icing and some with both royal icing and buttercream. Decorate them however your heart desires and have fun with it! If you want to keep decorating, while the cookies dry and the first layer of royal icing hardens, make the buttercream.
Make the Vanilla Buttercream
- In the bowl of stand mixer of large bowl if you're using an electric hand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, start by whipping the butter by itself for 3 minutes or so until light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl. Then, add in 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time. Mix in the vanilla, pinch of salt, and continue to stir until completely combined.
- Place buttercream into a large piping bag fitted with a coupler and small open circle writer tip.
- Store unused buttercream (you will only need around ½ cup - 1 cup depending on the designs you create) in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a few days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator as needed.
Finish Decorating Snowflake Sugar Cookies
- Once the royal icing layer has hardened on the sugar cookies, pipe your buttercream outlined snowflake on top of each cookie. You can pipe any design you want, but if you want to make a simple stunning snowflake design like in the pictures, follow these steps:Hold the piping bag in your dominant writing hand and with even pressure, start at one point of the snowflake cookie and squeeze a straight line all the way across to create a straight line. Repeat this 2 more times to create 3 straight lines for a 6 point snowflake design. On each end of the line, pipe 2 small arrow heads or letter "v" to create a snowflake look.
- Immediately dip the cookie gently into sanding sugar sprinkles. I like to pour out the sprinkles on to a flat surface such as a plate to make this step easier. Top with edible glitter if desired for a truly beautiful and unique winter wonderland design!
- Once cookies are decorated, store in an airtight container to ensure they do not dry out. Store cookies at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 1 week or store in the freezer for up to 3 months. (Refer to freezing instructions in above blog post for best results.)Tip: If cookies seem too dry, you can store them in an airtight container with a slice of bread and it will soften them right up after a few hours!
- Enjoy!!
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