Grinch sugar cookies are the perfect addition to your next holiday cookie tray. Soft vanilla sugar cookies are topped with green peppermint frosting and a decorative heart.
Heather's recipe summary
Flavor/texture: Soft, tender sugar cookies topped with sweet vanilla-peppermint buttercream frosting and a heart sprinkle.
Chilling time: Dough requires 30 minutes of chill time before baking.
Yield: 32 cookies
Similar to: Soft Frosted Christmas Cookies and Soft Sugar Cookies
Jump to:
Ingredients and substitutions
- Food coloring - Green liquid or gel food coloring will work in buttercream frosting. I recommend gel food coloring because it has a more concentrated color than liquid.
- Sprinkles - I used the red hearts from these Wilton jumbo heart sprinkles on Amazon, but any red heart sprinkles will work.
How to make grinch sugar cookies
- Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Sift in dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.
- Scoop with medium cookie scoop into 1.5 inch balls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Flatten with the bottom of a glass dusted with flour.
- Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes or until the tops look set and edges begin to barely brown.
- Cool completely on a wire rack before decorating with frosting.
Heather's Top Tip
For accurate results every time, use a kitchen scale to measure flour by weight. If you don't have a kitchen scale, use the spoon and level method. Stir the flour (especially if it's been packed down in a bag/container), then gently spoon into the measuring cup, leveling off the top with a knife. Scooping with a measuring cup compacts flour into the cup and adds up to 25% extra to the recipe, resulting in dry, bland cookies that don't spread properly.
Tips and tricks
Room temperature ingredients - It's very important to use room temperature ingredients for a few reasons. Room temperature ingredients incorporate together seamlessly to create a smooth, even dough. An even dough (without flecks of butter or egg) helps create perfect cookies. Creaming together the butter and sugar helps create lift in your cookies when they bake.
Do not substitute ingredients - This recipe requires few ingredients, which means each ingredient is very important to the recipe's success. Eggs, butter, and granulated sugar all add moisture to your dough. Substituting or reducing these ingredients will change the texture and moisture of your cookies.
Don't overmix the dough - Once the gluten (flour) has been added to the recipe, take care not to overmix the dough. Overworking the gluten can cause your cookies to turn out tough.
Piping decorations - I used a #18 open star piping tip to decorate my cookies. Any open star tip around #18-#21 will give you a similar result.
Add sprinkles - Add your heart sprinkles while the frosting is wet for best results. Allow your cookies to dry for several hours before storing to allow frosting to crust.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, sugar cookies can be made a day or two ahead of time and stored until ready to serve. Add a slice of bread to your cookie container to help keep your cookies soft. If you'd like to make them more than a few days ahead of time, baked and frosted cookies can be frozen until ready to serve. To thaw, place on the countertop for 1 hour or more.
If your cookies are dry and also bland, it sounds like too much flour was added. I highly recommend measuring flour by weight instead of using a measuring cup, which can add up to 25% extra flour to a recipe.
This recipe contains the proper ratios of wet to dry ingredients, including plenty of moisture-retaining ingredients, and will not turn out dry or bland if the proper measurements, ingredients, and baking recommendations are followed.
The dough may be coo told (maybe left in the refrigerator too long or frozen), or too much flour was added to the dough. Here are a few ways to deal with dough that won't spread:
- Leave your dough balls on the counter top to warm slightly before baking. Cold dough spreads less and warm dough spreads more.
- Use your hands or the bottom of a flour-dusted glass to press down on the dough balls before baking. This helps your dough balls spread more and creates a flatter top (this is also described in step six of the recipe card).
- If too much flour was added to your dough, you'll want to make sure your cookies aren't also overbaked - this combination results in a dry cookie.
This can happen when your dough is too warm or not enough flour was added to the dough to give it stability.
- Make sure not to skip the step of refrigerating your dough. This not only helps the flavors meld, but also makes the dough easier to roll into balls and helps it spread less in the oven.
- If your dough is still spreading in the oven, try refrigerating the dough balls (directly on the sheet pan if it will fit) for 10 minutes, then transfer directly into the oven.
- Use parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. I do not recommend using a greased cookie sheet. A layer of grease/cooking spray makes cookies (of any kind) spread more in the oven.
These cookies are topped with buttercream frosting, which is a very sweet frosting. Buttercream frosting is popular with home bakers because it's very easy to make with just two main ingredients (butter and sugar) and it doesn't require any cooking. Unfortunately, the frosting relies on confectioner's sugar for sweetness and stability. Adding less sugar will result in a frosting that tastes mostly of butter and is too thin to pipe. Your frosting also won't crust (harden) if you've made it with less sugar. If you'd like a less sweet frosting, I recommend something like ermine frosting instead, which can be dyed with food coloring and piped. You could also spread your buttercream in a thinner layer with a knife instead of piping it.
Recommended
📖 Recipe
Grinch Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 ¼ cups (248 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups (360 g) all-purpose flour, *measured properly
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
Buttercream frosting
- ¾ cup (170 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 ½ cups (284 g) confectioner's sugar
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon peppermint extract, optional
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- green gel food coloring
- heart sprinkles
Instructions
Cookies
- In a large bowl, add room temperature butter and sugar. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat until light and fluffy, about a minute. Add eggs and vanilla extract and beat until fully incorporated and fluffy, about a minute.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually stir (or use a mixer on low speed) dry ingredients into butter mixture until just combined.
- Cover bowl and chill dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Refrigerating allows time for flavors to meld and also creates a firmer dough that's easy to roll into balls.
- Preheat oven to 350℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Remove dough from refrigerator. Scoop dough using a medium 1.5 inch cookie scoop or shape by hand into 1.5 inch balls.
- Place cookie dough balls 2 inches apart onto prepared baking sheet. Gently flatten balls slightly using your hands or the bottom of a glass dusted with flour (to prevent sticking).
- Bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until tops look set and edges barely begin to lightly brown (times will vary based on your own oven and size of cookies). Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Frosting
- In a medium bowl, add room temperature butter, confectioner's sugar, heavy cream, vanilla extract, peppermint extract, and salt. Whip until frosting is smooth and spreadable. Add more heavy cream as needed to achieve desired consistency.
- Transfer frosting into a piping bag fitted with an open star tip (like an #18-#21 tip) and decorate the tops of your cookies with frosting.
- Add a heart shaped sprinkle to each cookie and allow to air dry for a few hours before storing (frosting will crust on the outside but the inside remains soft, so pressure can cause the frosting to indent).
Equipment Recommendations
Notes
- * How to measure flour properly: Use a kitchen scale to measure flour for accurate results every time. If you don't have a kitchen scale, use the spoon and level method. Stir the flour (especially if it's been packed down in a bag/container), then gently spoon into the measuring cup, leveling off the top with a knife. Scooping with a measuring cup compacts flour into the cup and adds up to 25% extra to the recipe, resulting in dry, bland cookies that don't spread properly.
- Dough storage: Cookie dough will keep in refrigerator for 2-3 days, or up to 3 months in the freezer.
- Cookie storage: Cookies will keep for up to 5 days in a tightly sealed container at room temperature. Add a slice of bread to the cookie container to help keep cookies moist. Replace as needed (bread will dry out).
- More tips: Be sure to check out my 10 tips for baking cookies, based on reader comments and questions!
I had so much fun creating this recipe! I hope you give it a try and love it as much as I do. If you have a question, check out the post above, which is packed with information about the recipe. Tried the recipe? I'd love to hear your thoughts — leave a comment and a star rating to share your feedback!