Rosette Sugar Cookies Recipe

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These Rosette Sugar Cookies are such a soft and chewy sugar cookie topped with a yummy buttercream icing. A classic cookie recipe with simple decoration – I love them!

Rosette Sugar Cookies on a 3-tiered dessert stand

Overhead view of Rosette Sugar Cookies on a polka-dot napkin

So you may or may not figured this out by now, but I have a sweet tooth. 😉

I have always loved my cake, cookies, you name it – with icing. That’s just how I roll. In fact, often the cake, cookie, etc is really just the delivery method for a delicious icing.

Case in point: Betty Crocker recently brought back their Rainbow Chip icing. Please tell me you know what it is and have had it before! It is the best!

Yes, yes, I know. How can I possibly say that a canned icing is the best?! I bake from scratch (mostly). But I tell you – I have been eating that icing since I was a kid and it’s the only canned icing I really eat. And you guys I die for it. Die!

When I saw it back on shelves a week or so ago, I bought six cans of it. You read that right – six.

I mean, much like a chipmunk I feel the need to store that stuff up in case they ever take it away from me again. I don’t know what I’d do. It’s really self preservation.

And ever since then, I’ve been eating a little bit at a time. I’ve been pulling out vanilla wafers and dipping them in the icing. It’s the salsa to my chip. 🙂 Just a few at a time.

Rosette Sugar Cookies on a silver cake stand with one in front

So you see, icing and cookies are like peanut butter and jelly to me. Not for all cookies, but definitely for sugar cookies. No icing? No sugar cookie.

So I had a little fun with them and iced them with rosettes. They are the easiest thing to do but look so great and like you put in plenty of effort. All you need is an icing bag and tip. I use Ateco tip 844, my favorite tip, but the Wilton 1M is more readily available in stores and would work as well. I made a quick little animation for you below showing the piping motion so you can recreate these easily at home. You start at the center of the cookie and squeeze the piping bag with the same pressure throughout, moving from the center in a circular motion all the way until you reach the edge.

Rosette Sugar Cookies frosting process

The cookies are nice and easy to make as well. A pretty straight forward cookie dough.

How to Frost Sugar Cookie Rosettes

You start by creaming the butter and sugar together. I use a combination of regular white sugar and light brown sugar. The brown sugar not only adds some extra moisture to the cookies, it also adds some depth of flavor. The hubs totally dug it.

Then add the egg and vanilla to the creamed butter and sugar and mix until smooth.

The final step is to add the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. It makes quite a thick cookie dough, so don’t be alarmed.

One ingredient you might think seems a little odd is the cornstarch. It is a must in these cookies to get the right result. Cornstarch is typically used for thickening and in these cookies, it serves a similar purpose. As the cookies bake and everything heats up and would normally spread into a larger cookie, the cornstarch keeps the cookie “thick”. It doesn’t spread nearly as much and maintains it’s thickness, resulting in a denser, chewier and yummy cookie!

These cookies were a big hit with the hubs and his coworkers. Gone in a flash! And they’re so easy to make, there’s really no excuse not to. 🙂

Close-up of Rosette Sugar Cookies

You Might Also Like These Cookie Recipes:

Fruit Cheesecake Sugar Cookie Cups
Moist and Chewy Banana Oatmeal Cookies
Soft and Chewy Eggnog Cookies
Classic Chewy Snickerdoodle Cookies
Coconut Sugar Cookies

Print
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Rosette Sugar Cookies on 3 tiered wooden tray
Recipe

Rosette Sugar Cookies

  • Author: Lindsay
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 8 minutes
  • Total Time: 18 minutes
  • Yield: 28-30 Cookies
  • Category: Cookies
  • Method: Oven
  • Cuisine: American

Description

These Rosette Sugar Cookies are such a soft and chewy sugar cookie topped with a yummy buttercream icing. A classic cookie recipe with simple decoration – I love them!


Ingredients

COOKIES

  • 3/4 cup salted butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 tsp cornstarch
  • 1 tsp baking soda

ICING

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 4 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 23 tbsp water or milk
  • pink icing color*

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.
3. Mix in egg and vanilla extract.
4. With the mixer on low speed, add flour, cornstarch and baking soda. Mix until well combined. Dough will be thick.
5. Make balls of dough that are about one big tablespoon in size. Press them down slightly onto cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 7-8 minutes, or until edges are just starting to brown.
7. Remove from oven and let cool for 2-3 minutes, then remove to cooling rack.
8. To make icing, combine butter and shortening and mix until smooth.
9. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and mix until smooth.
10. Add vanilla extract and 2 tbsp of water or milk and mix until smooth.
11. Add remaining powdered sugar and mix until smooth.
12. Add more water or milk until desired consistency is reached.
13. Pipe icing onto cookies using the animated tutorial above to make a rosette.

*I used Wilton Icing Gel color for the icing. I used mostly Rose color, with a touch of Violet.


Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1 cookie
  • Calories: 212
  • Sugar: 19.2 g
  • Sodium: 86 mg
  • Fat: 11.6 g
  • Carbohydrates: 26 g
  • Protein: 1.4 g
  • Cholesterol: 27.3 mg

Filed Under:

Enjoy!

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21 Comments
  1. Kaitlin

    I love this recipe, but still felt like the cookie wasn’t as thick as I wanted. I tried not pressing it down at all but it still spread out. Is there anything I can do to make it thicker?

    1. Lindsay

      I’m not sure. It’s possible another recipe? You could place around with adjusting the amount of flour and/or butter.

  2. cookie

    I would like to make rosette sugar cookies for my best friend but I am worried if icing dry?
    Can you stack them for transportation purpose.
    Thank you.

  3. Erin

    Will these work with royal icing, or would you recommend the cutout recipe instead? Looking to make round sugar cookies with blood spatter for Halloween.
    Thanks either way!

    1. Lindsay

      Hmm, not sure. These are definitely softer, so that could possibly not work well with the royal icing. I’m not sure without trying it though.

      1. Erin

        I figured I’d try both ways (cut outs and these) and they both worked well. Image link below. Thanks for your response!

      2. Lindsay

        omg they are so perfectly creepy!! 🙂 I’m glad to know the softer ones work – I’ll have to do that!

  4. Oren

    Hi Lindsay. These look gorgeously delicious! I want to make them for an afternoon tea party. I have all the ingredients required to make the cookies beside the shortening. Can I use butter or vegetable oil in place of it? Or is there any other substitute that you would suggest? Thank you 🙂

  5. Erin R.

    Sugar cookies with a huge pile of frosting make me weak in the knees. The grocery store by my house (Harmons) has an impossibly good bakery, but I am saddened every time I walk through and see their otherwise stellar sugar cookies with their useless little swipe of frosting as thin as a human hair. I need a 1:1 frosting to cookie ratio to even think about buying them. These pictures of yours have set off a craving that is just going to escalate. I should print this recipe and do something about it tonight…

  6. cupcakes

    Simple way but amazing, for the first lok at the pictures I thought it’s hard to make the top rose design on these cookies but after see the Instructions I think it’s so easy

  7. Michelle @ My California Kitchen

    You are speaking my language…I love homemade frosting but there is something about Rainbow Chip that I am just obsessed with. I heard they brought it back but haven’t seen it in stores yet! As soon as I find it, I am making myself a celebratory funfetti cake with rainbow chip icing <3

  8. Rebecca

    For how hard the design looks, its actully pretty simple! I have meaning to do this on cupcakes. It would be perfect for Valentines day!

  9. Katrina

    Oh. My. Gosh!!! You don’t even know how you just made my day! I can’t believe Betty Crocker brought back the Rainbow Chip Icing… YESSSSS!!! 🙂 Sad but true, I still check the shelves at every grocery store I go to hoping that one day they would bring it back, and they did! Yay!!! What store did you find it at? Hopefully I’ll find it where I live too.
    The cookies are gorgeous and look delicious. Love the video too. I love to decorate cakes/cookies and never knew how to do the rosette design =\ Thanks to you, now I know! 🙂

  10. Serene @ House of Yumm

    These are so pretty Lindsay! Love your little video showing how you piped the frosting. And I so understand your feelings about the Rainbow Chip frosting. And now I am absolutely going to go snag some and some Nilla wafers and have a grand ol party just the three of us.

  11. Lynn M.

    I love a good sugar cookie..I am anxious to make these to see what the cornstarch does to the cookie. Sounds interesting. Love the rosette icing on top..I use this technique often on cupcakes and cakes. You didn’t add the pink food coloring to the list of ingredients, but for many novice bakers it might be nice you do..so they know how much to add if desiring to use color in the frosting. Yours are scrumptious looking and beautiful.

  12. Mir

    You need to do more of those animated videos! That was awesome. And these are so pretty. They’d be perfect for a girlie event.

Lindsay
About Lindsay

I'm a wife and a mom to twin boys and a baby girl! And I've got a serious sweets addiction! Bring on the treats!

Scripture I’m Loving

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28-29