These snowflake cookies recipe makes absolutely pretty cookies. Decorated with fondant snowflakes and beautiful gold sugar dragees, these decorated cut out sugar cookies make perfect holiday snowflakes cookies for Christmas.

The cookies are are made with the my no spread sugar cookie recipe that holds its shape so perfectly. The cookies are cut out with snowflake cookie cutters and decorated with fondant cut outs with the same cutters. The design on the cookies is embossed with a cookie press mat. The embossed line are then painted with edible gold paint and decorated with gold dragees.

These painted snowflake cookies make perfect snowflake Christmas cookies. You can add them to your cookie platter or wrap them individually as gifts for cookie exchange or hang them to your Christmas tree with a matching gold ribbon.

Sugar cookies in the shape of snowflakes decorated in blue, white and gold. — Easy Snowflake Cookie Decorating Idea - Blue and White Snowflake Cookies Designs for the Holiday Season

These decorated snowflake sugar cookies are very easy to make. Since the cookie dough holds its shape so perfectly well after baking, you can use the same cookie cutter you used for cutting dough to cut the fondant.

As you can see below, the fondant cut outs fit the baked sugar cookies perfectly. That is all thanks to my sugar cookie recipe that produces baked cookies in the exact same shape and size I put them into the oven. So if you are looking for a perfect cut out sugar cookie, my homemade sugar cookie recipe is all you need!

For the snowflakes design on the cookies, I used an embossing mat and painted on the gold pattern with edible gold dust. If you don't have an embossing mat, you can always paint the cookies free hand or use a snowflake cookie press to decorate.

How to Make
Notes
Like this Christmas festive cookies decorating idea? Here are my other posts you might want to check out
Recipe (Printable)

How to Make

Ingredients for the cookies

All purpose flour (plain flour)
Granulated sugar (castor sugar)
Butter (salted)
Egg
Vanilla extract

Ingredients and tool for decorating

Snowflake cookie cutter & embossing mat - I used the metal snowflake cookie cutters and embossing texture set by Autumn Carpenter. This set comes with a number of snowflake cookie cutters in various sizes along with a matching embossing mat for a variety of snowflake shapes.
Fondant & Americolor food color in Silver Spruce - I used Satin Ice in white and tinted some of it with Americolor Silver Spruce for the blue snowflakes and used the untinted white for the white snowflakes. You can use any other blue food coloring you like.
Edible gold dust + lemon extract - I mixed these two to form the thick gold paint.
Fine tipped cake decorating brush - A fine-tipped brush will help you achieve fine painting on the cookies, so it is important to use a food-grade, fine-tipped brush for the painting work.
Gold dragees - I used gold dragees in 2 sizes; a slightly larger one for the cookie center and smaller dragees all around it.
Fondant glue - I used this to stick the fondant cutout onto the cookies as well as to stick the gold dragees on the cookies.

Baking the cookies

Line baking tray with parchment paper or a baking sheet and pre-heat oven to 170 °Celsius.
In a medium or large bowl, cream butter and sugar on medium speed with an electric mixer until the mixture turns light and creamy. Do not over mix.
Next, add the egg in the sugar and butter mixture and beat until it is well incorporated. Add vanilla extract and mix again.
Finally, add the flour and mix on low speed until the dough comes together. Place the dough in a covered bowl (or wrap it in plastic wrap) and refrigerate until it is firm (but not too hard).
Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and roll it between parchment paper or plastic sheets. Use dowel rods as a guide for the thickness of your cookies. If not using the parchment sheets, roll the dough on a lightly floured surface to avoid the dough from sticking.
Cut the dough with the snowflake cookie cutters and place them on prepared parchment paper or cookie sheet. Refrigerate until they are firm.
Bake the cookies for about 10 to 15 minutes (depending on the size of your cookies) in the preheated oven until they turn golden brown on the sides.
Remove cookies from the oven and cool them on a wire rack to room temperature. Keep cookies in an airtight container until ready to decorate.
The cookies can also be baked in advance.

Baked sugar cookies. — **Baked cookies**

Preparing the fondant

To decorate the snowflake sugar cookies, divide white fondant into 2 and tint one part with Americolor Silver Spruce or other blue gel food coloring. Leave the other part white.
You can decorate all the blue snowflake cookies first and then decorate white ones. Since the decorating method is the same for both colors, this tutorial shows the step for the blue ones, and you just need to replicate the same steps to make the white snowflake cookies.
Begin by rolling the blue fondant thin. Make sure you dust it well with either icing sugar (powdered sugar) or cornstarch ( I used cornstarch) to prevent it from sticking to your work space.

A piece of rolled blue fondant. — Blue Fondant for the Blue Snowflake Cookies

Snowflakes on the cookies

Next, dust the embossing mat generously with cornstarch or icing sugar (with the raised pattern on the mat facing down). Turn the mat over onto the rolled fondant and gently but firmly press the pattern on the mat onto it.

Fondant impression mat. — ***Embossing mat with pretty snowflake pattern***

Dusting an impression mat. — ***Dust the mat generously with cornstarch. The raised pattern on the mat should be facing down.***

An impression mat on a piece of blue rolled fondant. — ***Turn the mat over onto rolled fondant (the raised embossed pattern on the mat should now be facing up).***

Using the end of a rolling pin to press on an impression mat. — ***Press the pattern gently with your fingers or using the end of a small rolling pin.***

Lift the mat up and you will see the snowflake pattern embossed beautifully on the fondant.

A snowflake pattern imprinted on a piece of blue fondant.

Using the same cookie-cutter used to cut the snowflake sugar cookie dough, cut out the rolled fondant into a snowflake shape, making sure the embossed pattern is well centered within the cookie cutter.

A cookie cutter on a piece of blue rolled fondant.

Attaching the snowflakes to the cookies

Next, brush your baked snowflake sugar cookies very lightly with glue and carefully attach it onto the cut out cookie. Start with the pointy ends on one side of the cookie before moving slowly to the center and other parts of the snowflake. Adjust the pointed ends of the snowflake so that they are all well aligned with the cookie underneath.

Once the fondant is attached to the cookie, use a large soft brush to brush off excess dusting flour on the fondant cutout.

Painting the sugar cookies

After that, you can start to paint the embossed pattern on the snowflake sugar cookies. Use the edible gold dust mixed with some lemon extract to it to turn it into gold paint (start with a little extract at a time so that the paint does not become too diluted).
Use a fine-tipped brush (food grade) to paint the embossed snowflake pattern on the fondant.

Painting a blue snowflake sugar cookie gold. — Painted Snowflake Sugar Cookies

Attaching gold dragees

After the painting is all done, attach gold dragees to the sugar cookie. Use a larger dragee at the center of each cookie and the smaller ones on the sides. Attach these with a light brush of fondant glue to make sure they stick securely to the fondant.

Blue snowflake sugar cookie painted in gold. — ***Gold dragee in the center***

Blue snowflake sugar cookie painted in gold and decorated with gold dragees. — ***More gold dragees on the sugar cookie***

Repeat the process for all the snowflake sugar cookies, including the white ones.

Notes

The baking time indicated in the recipe is for snowflakes cookies measuring approximately 6cm in diameter. With this baking time, the recipe produces well baked crisp cookies.
If you like soft cookie, reduce the baking time indicated in the recipe card.
If you make larger cookies, you will need to increase the baking time for crisp cookie texture and can maintain the same time for soft cookies. Similarly, if you are making small cookies, the time needs to be adjusted accordingly to achieve the cookie texture you wish.

Can you use unsalted butter to make the cookies?

Yes, you can. Remember to add ⅛ of a teaspoon of salt to the mixing bowl when creaming butter and sugar.

Ideally, the dough should be chilled until it is cold but still workable (i.e able to roll it). If you chill the dough for too long, you will end up having to let it rest at room temperature until it softens before you can roll and cut your cookies.
The chilling time after the cookies are cut, however, can be much longer. You can even leave them overnight and can be baked directly out of the fridge.

Flavor Options

The sugar cookie recipe on this page makes vanilla snowflake cookies. The dough can be customized to other flavor is you like.
For lemon snowflake cookies, add omit vanilla essence and added in 1 tablespoon of freshly grated lemon rind.
For almond snowflake cookies - omit vanilla essence and replace with almond extract.
Funfetti snowflake cookies - mix the cookie dough as indicated, and mix in some colorful sprinkles into the dough before chilling it. Cut, bake and decorate the cookies as usual.
Cocoa snowflake cookies - reduce the flour by 50 grams and add 50 grams of cocoa powder. Sift the cocoa powder with flour before adding into the creamed cookie batter.

Can the cookies be decorated with royal icing?

Yes, you can. Fit a piping bag with a small round tip and pipe an outline on the cookies with stiff royal icing before filling them with royal icing. Once the icing is set, paint the gold patterns on them with the edible gold paint and attach the gold dragees.
It is advisable to wait until the icing is completely set before attaching the dragees.

Like this Christmas festive cookies decorating idea? Here are my other posts you might want to check out

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my easy snowflake cookies recipe:

📖Recipe

And that is pretty much the recipe and decorating tutorial for the iced snowflake cookies, perfect for winter holidays!

Happy Decorating 🙂

Snowflake Cookies - Pretty Decorated Christmas Cookies

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