These painted sugar cookies are the perfect way to make decorating cookies super accessible for toddlers, and they’re super delicious too!
My 2 1/2 year old niece Scarlet has been super into arts and crafts lately. Over Halloween we painted pumpkins, and recently we’ve been painting little wooden objects and Christmas ornaments. I wanted our next craft project to be baking and decorating Christmas cookies together, but I needed to think of a way to make that easy and accessible for her. Because I’m not gonna lie, decorating sugar cookies in a beautiful way is hard even for me, a 33 year old woman. But then I came across this super simple recipe for edible “paint” made from only two ingredients, and since Scarlet loves painting so much already, I figured what better holiday baking activity than making painted sugar cookies!
We made these painted sugar cookies for the Christmas season, using cookie cutters shaped like Christmas trees, stars, Santa Claus, etc. But these cookies would be perfect for any holiday, or even just as a really fun craft to do with little ones.
MAKING PAINTED SUGAR COOKIES
The base recipe for these sugar cookies is a simple one, making them easy and accessible for just about anyone to make. (Of course you don’t have to use my sugar cookie recipe, can use whatever cut-out sugar cookie recipe you like). But while they may be super simple to make, they do take a little bit of time. And that’s because there are three distinct steps to making them, and you’ll have to wait for the cookies to dry/cool completely before moving on to the next step. First, you’ll make the cookies, bake them and let them cool completely (about an hour). Then you’ll make the the icing, ice the cookies and let them dry completely (another hour). And then, finally, you can make the edible paint, and paint away!
If you wanted to shorten the process of making them a bit, you could use the edible paint to paint directly onto the cookies without icing them first. But I think that having that white “canvas” of icing really makes the paint stand out even more, making for some really beautiful cookies.
MAKING EDIBLE PAINT
What makes these painted sugar cookies so special is of course the edible “paint.” This paint is made suuuuuper simply with only two ingredients:
- Lemon extract
- Gel food coloring
All you need to do is mix these two ingredients, about 10-12 drop of gel food coloring per tablespoon of lemon extract, and you have a beautiful edible paint. We used a tiny bowl for each of the four colors we had – blue, red, green and yellow – but feel free to purchase a wider variety of food coloring to make even more colors, or even mix those basic four yourself to make the whole rainbow.
The “paint” itself is thin, very much like watercolor paint. But this allows you to create some beautiful blending of colors on these cookies, and to really get abstract and creative with your painting. Since you’re using lemon extract as the medium for the food coloring, these cookies will take on a slightly lemony taste. We love lemon in my household, so we happen to think that’s really delicious. But if you wanted to avoid that lemon flavor, you could use vodka instead of lemon extract. I was wary of doing this because Scarlet is only two year old. But according to everything I’ve read online, once the paint is dried, all of the alcohol content in the vodka will have evaporated, making it safe for kids to eat.
So next time you’re looking for a holiday activity to do with little ones, or even an arts-and-crafts activity that’s a little bit out of the box, try making these painted sugar cookies. I promise you, the kids will have a great time making them (I know Scarlet did), and best of all, they get to eat them too!
Painted Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- stand mixer or hand mixer with paddle attachment
Ingredients
For the cookie dough
- 1 cup (16 tbsp) butter, room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 3 1/2 cups flour, plus more for dusting
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp salt
For the icing
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 3 tbsp milk
For the paint
- gel food coloring (you'll need about 10 drops of each color)
- 1 tbsp lemon extract per color of food coloring that you have
Instructions
For the cookies
- Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 baking sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.
- Using a stand mixer or hand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and egg and beat until combined.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture in three parts, beating to fully combine between each. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and set in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.
- Once the dough is chilled, divide it in half. Roll each half out on a floured work surface to 1/4 inch thick. Use cookie cutters to punch out shapes. Use a spatula to transfer the cookies to a baking sheet and bake in batches until just beginning to turn brown around the edges, about 10 minutes.
- Once cookies are cooked, let them cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes. Then transfer them to a cooling rack and let them cool completely before icing.
For the icing
- Whisk together powdered sugar and milk until smooth. Add more milk if it seems to gloopy, and more powdered sugar if it seems too thin.
- Once your cookies are baked and cooled completely, use a thin offset spatula or a butter knife to spread the icing evenly over each cookie. Allow the icing to harden completely (about 1-2 hours) before painting.
For painting the cookies
- In a small bowl, combine 1 tbsp of lemon extract and 10-12 drops of gel food coloring. Stir well to combine (the two won't combine completely, but that's ok). Repeat this for each color of food coloring that you have.
- Once your iced cookies have dried completely, use a clean paintbrush to paint directly onto the iced cookies. Allow the paint to dry before serving or eating!
Can you use lemon juice instead of extract? Thank you!
You could definitely try it! Not sure how the lemon juice would react with the icing that you put on the cookies first, but I don’t think it would be an issue!