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This mouthwatering 5-minute Sugar Cookie Frosting is smooth, creamy, and perfect for decorating cookies. It’s a top-requested recipe!
This delicious Sugar Cookie Frosting is made with both vanilla and almond extract. It’s perfect for decorating cookies, especially The Best Sugar Cookies and Sugar Cookie Bars.
![This mouthwatering 5-minute Sugar Cookie Frosting is smooth, creamy, and perfect for decorating cookies. It's a top-requested recipe! Four sugar cookies on a white plate with sugar cookie frosting and colorful sprinkles.](https://lilluna.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/sugar-cookie-frosting-resize-2.jpg)
The Only Sugar Cookie Frosting Recipe Youโll Ever Need
A good Sugar Cookie Frosting recipe is a necessity for anyone who likes to decorate cookies. But thereโs a problem with most recipes: they donโt taste good!
Sugar Cookie Frosting is usually bland and often grainy. It will help you make cute cookies, but you wonโt enjoy eating them. And whereโs the fun in that?
Thatโs why I love this recipe so much. Itโs a frosting that youโll actually want to eat. The secret? I add a little almond extract, as well as vanilla extract, to give this frosting a rich and complex flavor.
You’ll love whipping this up for any occasion or celebration, and it’s perfectly customizable. Color it for holidays, it’s perfect for making a tasty Christmas cookie. It goes perfectly with our favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe! Enjoy!!
How to Make Frosting for Sugar Cookies
This is an exceptionally Sugar Cookie Frosting recipe. It only takes 5 minutes, and then youโll have a melt-in-your-mouth frosting that is perfect for decorating.
COMBINE. Mix all the ingredients with a hand or stand mixer. Add more milk until itโs the desired consistency. Add food coloring (optional).
DECORATE! Spread on top of cookies with a knife or piping bag. Top it with delicious jimmy sprinkles, and enjoy!!
Sugar Cookie Frosting Variations
This frosting recipe is obviously customizable with food coloring, but here are some additional variations:
- Flavor. A huge part of what makes this recipe so good is the almond extract in addition to the vanilla extract. Change the flavors depending on the cookie being decorated: mint extract, strawberry extract, orange extract, and lemon extract, are some of my favorites.
- Consistency. A key part of good frosting is getting the desired consistency. After making the frosting, add more milk to make it thinner, or add more powdered sugar to thicken it up.
- Make it salted. While I usually use unsalted butter in this recipe, you can use salted butter too. It wonโt make the frosting salty, it will just amplify some of the flavors, and reduce the sweetness a little bit.
Recipe Tips
Here are some tricks and tips for making the best sugar cookie frosting every time.
Softened butter. Itโs important to use butter that is properly softened or it wonโt mix with the other ingredients. If itโs too soft, it will start to separate, and the frosting will be runny. Use butter thatโs soft enough to spread, but not so soft that it loses its shape.
Sift the powdered sugar. Confectioners’ sugar makes for silky frostings, but it can occasionally get clumps, which will ruin the texture. Sift the powdered sugar when adding it to the bowl, to ensure that the frosting is smooth.
Food coloring. When adding food coloring to this Sugar Cookie Frosting, itโs important to remember that once added, ingredients cannot be subtracted.
Start with a small amount of food coloring, mix up the frosting, and then add more if desired. I recommend gel food coloring as it is less likely to affect the texture than liquid food coloring.
Types of Frosting
In a nutshell, the different types of frosting include:
- Royal Icing is made using meringue powder and confectioners sugar. Adjust this icing so that it โfloodsโ or holds a shape. It can be used to create pictures and intricate designs on the top of the cookies. It dries smooth and hard.
- Sugar Cookie Icing has a confectioners sugar base that is thinned out with liquid, usually milk. It is thinner than frosting and is often simply spread on the cookie using a butter knife. Adjust the thickness of the icing with more powdered sugar to be applied with piping tips.
- Cake Frosting uses a creamy base and then adds confectioners sugar to sweeten it up. It is thicker and can hold its shape when using a piping tip or spread on using a butter knife.
Storing Info
STORE leftover Best Sugar Cookie Frosting in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Let the frosting come up to room temperature before using it.
FREEZE the frosting in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Thaw to room temperature before using, and blend with a hand mixer if the consistency isnโt quite right.
STORE a frosted cookie. Cool cookies and allow time for the frosting to set. Sugar Cookie Frosting doesnโt get hard like royal icing and can get smashed if not stored properly.
- Line the frosted cookies up on a baking sheet and then place them in the freezer.
- Once the frosting is solid stack the cookies, separating the layers with a piece of parchment paper, in a freezer-safe container.
- Freeze for 3-6 months.
- To thaw the cookies remove the layers and let them come to room temperature in a single layer.
FREEZE Sugar Cookie dough. Whip up a batch of frosting and a batch of Sugar Cookie Dough and keep them both in the freezer to be baked at a later date.
- Shape the dough into a log or disk.
- Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and then again with foil or place the wrapped cookie dough in a freezer Ziploc.
- Thaw in the fridge then roll and shape with cookie cutters before baking.
How to use Sugar Cookie Frosting
It probably goes without saying that I usually make this recipe to decorate Sugar Cookies. Here are some of my favorite recipes to top with this frosting.
- Lemon Sugar Cookies
- 3 Ingredient Sugar Cookies
- Sugar Cookie Bars
- No-roll Sugar Cookies
- The Best Sugar Cookies
More Mouth-Watering Frostings:
- Berry Buttercream Frosting
- Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
- Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting
- Easy Marshmallow Frosting
- Cream Cheese Frosting
- Lemon Frosting
Sugar Cookie Frosting
Ingredients
- โ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 4ยฝ cups powdered sugar
- ยผ cup milk, plus more as needed
- ยฝ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ยฝ teaspoon almond extract
- food coloring
Instructions
- Mix softened butter, powdered sugar, milk,ย vanilla extract, andย almond extract with a hand mixer. Add more milk until itโs the desired consistency. Add food coloring (optional)
- Spread on top of cookies with a knife or piping bag. Top it with delicious Jimmy sprinkles, and enjoy!!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
The recipe is good, but the amount of pop-ups and inability to quickly jump to recipe without confirming or denying installation of an app is SO annoying.
Ya click on jump to recipe and at just clicks to mire yappin
When making the cookies what size round cookie cutter do you use ?? where to get them ??
I made these cookies with my 7 year old son last night and oh my goodness! They are so dang good! The texture is so soft and fluffy and they taste amazing. I saw in some previous comments that the dough was really sticky. Mine was sticky too. I sprinkled some flour on the parchment paper I was going to roll the dough on, sprinkled some more on top of the dough and rubbed flour on my rolling pin. It worked like a charm and they came out perfect! Thank you for this delicious recipe.
This frosting is SO GOOD and FLAVORFUL! It is now permanently attached to my sugar cookie recipe ๐ค
I’m confused about the recipe. You talk about three different kinds of frosting (which I understand). However, is this particular recipe one that you pipe on or is it one that if thinned, has the properties of royal and will harden? Or harden enough that you can stack them?? Please advise. ๐
I’m looking for a recipe that will allow you to fill in with a piping bag, but not be as hard and bland as royal icing.
Great question! I’d say let the cookies cool and allow time for the frosting to set. It can be piped or spread, and it doesnโt get hard like royal icing. So it can get smashed if not stacked/stored properly. You can freeze the cookies and then stack just fine.
So good. We won’t be able to add almond next time due to nut free school policy. Do you think this would taste just as yummy?
For sure!! You definitely don’t have to add it. Hope they are a hit!
Loved this recipe for cookie frosting. Turned out delicious.
Thank you
I have never made homemade frosting before. I just walked my 12 year old through the recipe to make a double batch. This recipe is incredibly easy to make and it’s delicious! The only adustments we made were due to my years experience of cooking and baking. My dad was a gourmet chef and baker for almost 30 years, my brother is a chef, and my grandmother was a baker and confectioner. I had my 12 year old sift each cup to cup and a half of powdered sugar and I had them add a little bit of salt to each batch of icing since we used unsalted butter. I am SOOOO impressed with this frosting and I will be using it again and again! Thank you so much for such an AMAZING frosting recipe!
This is my first time making frosting as well. I have 75 round cookies to frost. Will this recipe be enough, or should I double it?
It kind of depends on how thick you like your frosting and the size of your cookies. This recipe makes about 5 cups of frosting. If you used about a tablespoon per cookie, that would give you 75-80 cookies. So, if the cookies are large or you like lots of frosting, you may want to make a batch and a half or even double it.