My April Sugar Cookie of the month was a tough call. Between Bunnies, Carrots, and pretty Easter Eggs, I had a lot of options on what to make!
Then, dangerously close to Easter, I realized I hadn’t yet purchased my FAVORITE Easter Candy in the entire World – Cadbury Mini Eggs. Then I thought…why not pay homage to my favorite Easter treat this year?
Thus, a very basic sugar cookie idea was born. The classic sugar cookie recipe, with the scrapings from a vanilla bean added to the frosting to try to get that speckled Cadbury Mini Egg look. I have gotten away with very basic cookie decorating for yet another month! Since there is no actual chocolate in this recipe, the cookies actually pair quite well with real Mini Eggs…Because cookies + candy together = no brainer. Especially on Easter!
Recipe
Cadbury Mini Egg Sugar Cookies
By Baked Northwest
Makes about 30 Egg-shaped sugar cookies (you will only use half of the cookie dough)
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
½ cup sour cream
4 cups flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp nutmeg
For the Frosting:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
the scrapings from 1 vanilla bean (about 1/2 tsp)
about 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk (nonfat is fine)
Blue Food Coloring
Red Food Coloring
Yellow Food Coloring
Directions
For the Cookies:
In a large stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, mix thoroughly. Add sour cream, mix thoroughly.
Sift together flour, salt, soda, baking powder and nutmeg. Add to butter mixture in
two parts and mix thoroughly.
Divide the dough into two parts and wrap each in wax paper. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. For the amount of frosting we are making, you will only use half of the dough. You can freeze the 2nd batch of dough for another use, or just double the frosting recipe!
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
On a clean, floured surface, roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Roll the dough so it’s about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick, and use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out shapes of the dough. For these cookies, I used an egg-shaped cookie cutter. Use a cookie spatula (better known as a pancake flipper) to move your cookies from the floured surface to a well greased baking sheet. Ungreased silicone baking sheet liners work great here too.
Bake the cookies at 400 degrees F for 8 minutes. You never want them to get too browned around the edges, or they’ll be super crunchy. We like ours on the softer side. Baking time depends on what shapes you cut your cookies into – we have adjusted baking times from 8-12 minutes depending on the size of our cookies. Let cool completely before frosting.
For the Frosting:
Combine butter, salt, vanilla, vanilla bean, and 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Add milk and remaining sugar, alternately. Mix until smooth & creamy.
Divide frosting evenly into 4 bowls. Add a tiny drop of blue food coloring to one bowl, a tiny drop of red to one bowl, a tiny drop of yellow to another bowl, and leave the last bowl white, without coloring. Mix each bowl with a clean fork until combined and to desired Cadbury Mini Egg Colors. Mini Eggs aren’t very dark, so you do not need much food coloring. Frost the cooled cookies. Cookies keep well in the fridge for a up to a week, a few days at room temperature. Enjoy!
NOTE: I made a full recipe of the dough and only used half. This cookie dough freezes really well and can be saved for another use, or you can double the frosting recipe and go crazy and bake all of the cookies!
