These easy holiday snowflake cookies make the most delicious and crisp snowflake sugar cookies. The snowflake sugar cookies have a hint of orange and lemon and this recipe will show you two really easy snowflake cookie designs along with an easy snowflake icing to make that requires no special skills.
Table of contents
About this Snowflake Cookie Recipe:
The snowflake sugar cookie recipe is really easy to make and not hard to decorate like many frosted sugar cookies you see. These white snowflake cookies are what we make at the holidays and they couldn't be any easier.
These cookies are made from a base citrus sugar cookie dough that we use for all of our holiday cookies. The snowflake icing is made only from powdered sugar and milk.
No special ingredients.
I will show you how we make these cookies at our house and how we make decorating these holiday sugar cookies really easy so you can make them too.
Ingredients you will need:
Cookies
- All Purpose Flour
- Unsalted Butter
- Granulated Sugar
- Powdered Sugar
- Zest of Lemon and Orange
Snowflake Icing
- Powdered Sugar
- Milk
- Squeeze bottle. This is if you are decorating the snowflake cookies with an outline which I will show you below.
Snowflake Decorations
- Clear Sparkling Sugar
- White Sugar Pearls (optional). These are small white balls that will accent the center and tips of the decorated cookies.
Though Demerara sugar is not used in the decorating part of this snowflake cookie recipe, I have included that as a third option for decorating these cookies. Just in case you want to add a little more color to your cookies.
To use this light brown only Demerara sugar cookies, just sprinkle the tops of the unbaked cookies with the sugar then bake following the recipe directions below.
How to make these snowflake holiday cookies
Making the citrus sugar cookie dough is very easy. You are going to mix wet ingredients together first then add the dry ingredients to that until a dough forms.
The sugar cookie dough will need to be refrigerated for at least one hour before rolling it out and cutting out your snowflake shapes.
If you have leftover scraps of the sugar cookie dough, you can check out my citrus snowball cookies that I love making with those scraps. It is so good!
How to decorate snowflake cookies:
For decorating these snowflake holiday cookies, I am showing you two methods for two very easy snowflake designs. Both methods are done with a very easy to make snowflake icing that is white.
Method 1: Iced Snowflake Cookies
This method of decorating the snowflake sugar cookies is the easiest. It makes frosted snowflakes with a shimmery top.
You are just place the cookies upside down in a bowl of icing that is made from powdered sugar and milk. Carefully remove the iced cookies and place them right side up on to a sheet pan where they will covered in sparkling icing sugar.
If you just wanted to ice the snowflake cookies and not do the icing sugar part that is fine. The sparkling icing sugar adds some sparkle to the cookies but an all white frosted snowflake cookie looks beautiful too.
Method 2: Decorated Snowflake Cookies
If you want a more decorated snowflake look, these decorated snowflake cookies are very easy. You just need a squeeze bottle like the one in the picture to make these.
If you do not have a squeeze bottle, you can fill a ziploc bag with the icing and cut a small piece off the bottom corner of the bag. That cut bottom corner will be the tip you will squeeze the icing out of of when drawing the design.
You can find these bottles online or at any arts and crafts store. The idea in making this style of decorated snowflake cookie is to have lines starting from the center, working their way out to the points of the snowflake.
I like to finish the snowflake cookie design with white sugar pearls in the center and at all of the tips.
That is it. Both of these methods are very easy and will always make beautiful holiday cookies, even if you do not have lots of experience or lots of time.
You do not need to be an expert to make beautiful holiday cookies. These methods will help you have holiday cookies that you can be proud of and gift to loved ones.
More Holiday Recipes You May Like:
- Italian Pizzelle Recipe and Italian Pizzelle Cannoli
- Moist Carrot Cake Recipe
- Creamy Lemon Bars
- Almond and Vanilla Cake
- Citrus Snowball Cookies
- Eggnog Snowball Cookies
- Sugared Cranberries
- Cardamom Cookies
- Sugar Cookies with Sprinkles
- Buttery Shortbread Cookies
- Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
- Oven Baked Pizzelle
- Cranberry Lemon Bars
- Homemade Marshmallows
- Mini Cheesecake Bites
Holiday Snowflake Cookies
Tried the Recipe? We Would Love To Hear From You In The Comments Below!
Ingredients
Snowflake Sugar Cookie Dough
- 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
- ¾ cup 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup powdered sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- the zest of one lemon with a microplane or zester
- the zest of 1 orange with a microplane or zester
Snowflake Icing
- 1 cup of powdered sugar for icing
- 5 tablespoon of milk plus more if icing is too thick
Snowflake Decorations
- Clear icing sugar
- sugar pearls or small white round candy balls
Instructions
- Sift flour, baking powder and salt into medium bowl.2 cups unbleached all purpose flour, 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ¼ teaspoon salt
- Using electric mixer, beat butter, lemon zest and orange zest in large bowl until light.¾ cup 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, room temperature, the zest of one lemon, the zest of 1 orange
- Add sugar and powdered sugar and beat until fluffy.½ cup sugar, ¼ cup powdered sugar
- Beat in egg.1 large egg
- Add dry ingredients.
- Using spoon, stir until mixture forms dough (dough will be soft).
- Divide dough into thirds.
- Gather each third into ball; flatten into disks.
- Wrap each disk in plastic and refrigerate until firm, about 4 hours. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated. Let soften slightly, if necessary, before rolling out.)
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Generously flour work surface and rolling pin.
- Place 1 dough disk on work surface (keep remaining 2 dough disks refrigerated).
- Press rolling pin into dough several times to flatten slightly for easier rolling.
- Roll out dough to ⅛ inch thickness, frequently lifting and turning dough to prevent sticking. Using cookie cutters cut out cookies.
- Transfer cookies to ungreased nonstick baking sheets, spacing ½ inch apart.
- Bake until cookies turn brown on edges, about 10-15 minutes.
- Let cookies stand on sheets 1 minute. Using metal spatula, transfer cookies to racks and cool completely. Once cooled you can proceed to the decorating part!
Make the Snowflake Icing
- Gather all the ingredients you will need for the icing.1 cup of powdered sugar for icing, 5 tablespoon of milk
- Mix 1 cup of powdered sugar, food coloring(if using) and 2 tablespoon of milk in a large shallow bowl.
- Make sure all of the sugar lumps are gone and the consistency is nice and smooth but not watery.
- If it is watery just add 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar at a time until it thickens. If it is too thick add 1 tablespoon of milk at a time until it thins. You want a consistency a touch thinner than toothpaste.
Frosted Snowflake Cookies (Method 1)
- Take your cooled cookies and place them face down into the bowl of icing and carefully pull it out and place it right side up on a cooling rack to dry.
- Sprinkle the wet icing tops with icing sugar for sparkle.Clear icing sugar
- The cookies after being iced will need at least 2 hours (or more depending on humidity) to dry fully.
Decorated Snowflake Cookies (Method 2)
- Pour icing into a squeeze bottle.
- With the cooled cookie face up, start to draw a continuous line with the icing from the center to one of the tips of the snowflake.
- Continue making these lines from the center to the tips of all the snowflake points.
- Take a sugar pearl and place one in the center of the snowflake on top of the icing area.sugar pearls
- Now add sugar pearls to all of the points of the snowflake.
- The cookies after being iced will need at least 2 hours (or more depending on humidity) to dry fully.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Values are estimates only.
See full nutrition disclaimer here
Edi says
We made these for our thanksgiving/Christmas party (yes we start celebrating at thanksgiving!) and they were devoured!
We made all of the different cookies and they came out beautiful. The dough is drier so it helped to let it sit out for a bit. It did make really crisp cookies.
Definitely will make more for cookie boxes.
Melissa says
I'm so glad everyone loved them! They are perfect for those cookie boxes 🙂
Sarah says
This is exactly what I was looking for. I tried them out and tried the designs and they were beautiful!