Buttercream Cookies

This recipe is for buttery soft sugar cookies covered with fluffy buttercream frosting. The frosting has been swirled to look like mini roses, making this the perfect pretty treat for Mother’s Day, birthdays, or even a baby shower!

If you love cookie recipes, then have a look at the recipe for Dulce de Leche Cookies, this recipe for Coffee Biscuits, or this recipe for Lemon Biscuits.

To make these buttercream sugar cookies, you will need the simple ingredients listed below. Remember to always use fresh room temperature ingredients when baking.

Unsalted butter – choose unsalted butter over salted butter when baking so that you can adjust the saltiness on your own.

Castor sugar – use castor sugar or superfine sugar for this recipe

Cake flour – use cake flour or all-purpose flour to make these frosted sugar cookies.

Extra-large eggs – out of their shell, the eggs I use weigh 56 grams. If you aren’t sure if you have the same eggs, weigh the eggs you do have and adjust accordingly.

Food coloring – you will need two colors to make these mini rose cookies. I used pink and green. Feel free to swap out the colors to your preference. I used gel food coloring to color this classic buttercream recipe.

See the recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

Follow the simple instructions below to make these delicious buttercream cookies. First, make the cookie dough and allow it to chill. Then make the frosting recipe and decorate the cookies.

Instructions for cookies

STEP 1: Cream butter and sugar. Add the butter and sugar to a food processor. Pulse until the mixture is light and fluffy.

STEP 2: Add the eggs and vanilla. First, add the whole egg to the creamed mixture with the food processor running, and pulse until combined. Then add the egg yolk and vanilla and pulse until well combined.

STEP 3: Add the dry ingredients. Sift together the flour and salt and add this flour mixture to the egg and butter mixture all at once. Pulse until a dough forms; do not overmix.

STEP 4: Chill the dough. Remove the dough from the bowl, cover it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for 40 minutes to an hour.

STEP 5: Preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F) and line two large baking trays with parchment paper.

STEP 6: Roll the dough. Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and roll it out on a floured work surface to a thickness of ½ cm ( ¼ inch) using a rolling pin.

STEP 6: Bake the cookies. Cut 30 circles out of the dough using a round 10cm (4 inch) diameter cookie cutter and place the cut cookies onto an oven tray lined with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated oven for 12 minutes or until the cookies are a light golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool on a wire rack.

Instructions for frosting

STEP 1: Beat butter and icing sugar. In a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, add the butter and icing sugar. Beat at medium speed until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.

STEP 2: Add milk and vanilla. In a jug, combine the milk and vanilla, with the mixer's motor running at low speed slowly add the milk mixture. Continue until it has all been added. Then, increase the speed of the mixer to medium-high. Beat until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl often.

STEP 3: Color the frosting. Separate the frosting into two bowls, having about three-quarters in one bowl and the remaining frosting in another. Use the pink food coloring to dye the larger quantity of frosting and the green to color the remaining frosting.

STEP 4: Fill the piping bag. Prepare two disposable piping bags with the appropriate nozzles; one bag needs to have a rosette or star tip nozzle and the second to have a nozzle for piping the leaves. Fill the pink frosting into the rosette nozzle bag and the green frosting into the other.

STEP 5: Decorate. Place a cooled cookie onto a work surface and pipe a rose onto the cookie. Do this by starting in the center of the cookie and swirling outward. Where the pink swirl has ended, pipe a leaf there. Your rose cookies are now ready to enjoy!

Variations

These cookies can be decorated in so many different ways! If you don’t have the piping nozzles suggested above, then use an offset spatula to swirl the buttercream frosting onto the surface of each cookie and decorate them with sprinkles!

You can use the vanilla buttercream frosting suggested in this blog post or try out different frosting recipes! I love this Coffee Buttercream or this Raspberry Frosting swirled onto these cookies.

Equipment

To make the cookie dough, you will need a food processor or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. This recipe can also be made using an electric hand mixer.

To make the buttercream frosting, you will need a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or a hand held mixer. You will also need a round cookie cutter about 7cm in diameter, a cooling rack, disposable piping bags, and piping nozzles.

You will also need a large baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Storage

After baking and decorating these buttercream cookies, store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for about 4 days.

Unfilled cookies can keep in an airtight container for up to one week, choose to crisp them up in the oven before decorating them.

For freezing, the cookie dough can be frozen before baking. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and store it in the freezer for up to 3 months. To bake them at a later date, thaw the dough in the fridge overnight before using.

I do not recommend freezing cookies that have already been decorated.

There is nothing like baking something special and giving it to the people you love. Trust me, they will appreciate it so much more than something you bought!

If you decide to make these cookies for your next get-together, please leave a star rating and comment below – I would love to hear from you!

Don’t forget to follow along @with_love_kitty to make sure you never miss a recipe!

Happy Baking

With Love,

Kitty