Make a batch of adorable snowman cookies for the holiday season. They're made with my no-spread sugar cookie dough and decorated with white chocolate and sprinkles.
Heather's recipe summary
Flavor/texture: Tender, no spread cut out sugar cookie dough is topped with a thin layer of white chocolate and sprinkles.
Chilling time: Dough requires a 1 hour chill time before cutting and baking.
Yield: 24 four-inch snowman cookies
Similar to: Cut Out Sugar Cookies and Chocolate Cut Out Cookies
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Ingredients and substitutions
- Sprinkles - Fine sanding sugar works best to create colorful, textured scarves on our snowman cookies. Coarse sanding sugar has a harder time adhering to the white chocolate. You'll also need black confetti sprinkles (Amazon) for the eyes and buttons, as well as orange chocolate covered sunflower seeds (Amazon) for the noses. Alternatively, the buttons, eyes, and noses can be piped on with a small amount of dyed buttercream frosting.
- White chocolate - For the best texture, shine, and candy bar snap, you'll need white chocolate melting wafers (or almond bark) for this recipe. I don't recommend using chocolate chips, which dry with a dull, soft finish and melt easier in your hands.
- Cookie cutter - You'll need one snowman cookie cutter for this recipe. I used a 4 inch tall snowman cookie cutter (Amazon) for the pictured cookies, which made 24 total cookies.
How to make snowman cookies
- Cream together butter and sugar, beat in eggs and vanilla until fluffy, and then add sifted dry ingredients. Stir until just combined.
- Roll refrigerated dough on a flour dusted countertop and cut out with a snowman cookie cutter.
- Place cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake at 350F for 8-9 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned around the edges.
- Melt white chocolate and cover cookies. Add decorations while chocolate is wet.
- Pipe on scarves and other decorations.
- Add sprinkles to wet chocolate. Don't be afraid to heap it on.
- Use a pastry brush or other soft brush to dust off excess sprinkles once chocolate is dry.
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
Don't substitute ingredients - Each ingredient serves a purpose in the recipe and shouldn't be substituted or omitted.
Room temperature ingredients - Make sure you're using room temperature ingredients, not melted or cold. Room temperature ingredients emulsify when mixed with the sugar, creating a creamy, even dough.
Chill dough - Once your dough is mixed, wrap it up and place it in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Your dough can rest as long as 24 hours if you'd like to make it the day before. Chilling the dough reduces stickiness and makes it easier to roll out. It also helps your cookies spread less while baking in the oven.
Handle dough as little as possible - When you are ready to roll out the dough, try not to handle it too much with your hands. This warms up the dough faster, causing it to spread in the oven.
Dust everything with flour - Think about everything that’s touching the dough: the counter top or parchment paper, cookie cutters, rolling pin, and even your hands. A little flour will help the dough from sticking.
Chill cut cookies before baking - Whether you have issues with cookies spreading or not, I highly recommend chilling your dough for a second time before baking. Place the entire baking sheet into the refrigerator for about 10 minutes before baking.
Decorating tips
Melting chocolate - Melt your white chocolate wafers in 30 second increments in the microwave and stir each time. For me this takes about one minute. Overheating your chocolate can cause it to seize and get grainy, so err on the side of less heat for best results.
Frosting cookies - Use the back of a spoon, an offset spatula, or a butter knife to carefully coat the top of each cookie with white chocolate.
Add decorations quickly - Add your eyes, buttons, and nose while the white chocolate base is still wet. Chocolate dries faster than icing, so I recommend frosting only a few snowmen at a time before taking a break to add sprinkles.
Dry completely before piping scarves - The white chocolate base must be completely dry before adding the scarves. We're piping additional white chocolate on top of the white chocolate base so the scarves are raised and three dimensional. This also ensures the sprinkles only stick to the scarf and not the body of the snowman.
Add scarf sprinkles quickly - Pipe only a few scarves at a time and immediately top with fine sanding sugar. Gently tilt your cookies and use more sprinkles than you need to ensure even coverage.
Allow scarves to dry - Allow the scarves to dry completely before gently brushing excess sprinkles off with a pastry brush.
Frequently asked questions
Not exactly. Starbucks snowman cookies are made with a dense shortbread cookie base. My snowman cookies are made with a soft sugar cookie base. These cookies are slightly more delicate because they're soft and tender inside. They're both frosted with white chocolate, which is my favorite part of the Starbucks version.
No, these cookies turn out soft and tender throughout. This is due to the proportions of flour/egg/butter as well as the addition of two eggs that help keep the cookies soft.
Only if you have oil-based gel food coloring on hand. The vast majority of food coloring (including liquid and gel food coloring) contains water, which causes chocolate to seize. I tested this recipe with several types of food coloring with poor results, which is why I've decorated the scarves with sprinkles for a pop of color. If you'd like to use food coloring for your decorations, I recommend making a small batch of buttercream frosting, which works well with liquid or gel food coloring.
Here are a few common reasons why your cut out cookies are spreading in the oven and how to prevent this from happening:
- You've greased your baking sheet instead of using parchment. Adding grease to a baking sheet will cause any cookie (not just cut out cookies) to spread more than they should. This recipe calls for lining a baking sheet with parchment instead of using grease.
- Your dough is too warm. If your dough has spent a long time out of the refrigerator or you've handled it too much, it will spread more in the oven. To prevent this, chill your baking sheet with cut out cookies in the refrigerator for 10 minutes before baking.
- Don't place dough on a hot baking sheet. Instead, use two baking sheets and rotate them out, or allow your baking sheet to cool before loading it up with more cookies.
Too much flour will cause your dough to be dry, crumbly, and tough. If your dough is too dry, add 1-2 tablespoons of milk and mix to incorporate. The most accurate way to measure flour is with a kitchen scale (this is what I do and what I recommend to others). If you don't have a scale, spoon your flour into a measuring cup, then level off with a knife. When scooping directly from a bin with a measuring cup, this compacts the flour into the cup, adding up to 25% extra flour to your recipe.
Recommended
📖 Recipe
Snowman Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies
- ¾ cup (170 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- ¾ cup (148 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ¾ cups (330 g) all purpose flour, *measured properly
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
Decorations
- 8 ounces (226 g) white chocolate melting wafers
- 1 tablespoon black confetti sprinkles
- 2 tablespoons orange chocolate covered sunflower seeds
- fine sanding sugar, for scarves
Instructions
Cookies
- In a large bowl with a hand mixer (or stand mixer), cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla extract and beat until fluffy, about a minute.
- In a separate bowl, sift (or whisk) together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix until just combined (do not overmix). Shape dough into two round discs and wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour, or up to 24 hours.
- Preheat oven to 350℉ and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove one disc of dough at a time from the refrigerator.
- Dust counter top, rolling pin, and top of dough with flour. Roll dough out to ¼" thickness, dusting with additional flour as needed to prevent sticking. Using a snowman cookie cutter, cut dough into shapes and place onto prepared baking sheet about 1 inch apart.
- Bake cookies for about 8-9 minutes, or until cookies just begin to lightly brown around edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Decorations
- Transfer white chocolate melting wafers into a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30 second increments, stirring each time, until melted and smooth.
- Using a small spatula, the back of a spoon, or a butter knife, gently coat each cookie with a thin layer of melted white chocolate. If chocolate begins to thicken or dry in bowls, place back in the microwave and melt in 10 second increments.
- While chocolate is wet, add black confetti sprinkles for eyes and buttons, as well as orange chocolate sunflower seeds for the noses. Allow chocolate to dry completely before moving on to the next step.
- Once chocolate has dried, add a small amount of melted white chocolate to a plastic sandwich bag, seal, and snip off one corner. Carefully pipe scarves onto your snowmen. While chocolate is still wet, cover liberally with sanding sugar in desired colors.
- Allow chocolate to dry completely before gently brushing excess sugar off with a pastry brush.
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.
- Storage: Cut out sugar cookies will keep for 5 to 7 days in a tightly sealed container at room temperature. To help keep cookies fresh, place a slice of bread in the cookie container and replace when it dries out.
- Freezing: Cookies can be frozen for up to three months. To thaw, place on the countertop to bring to room temperature for 1 to 2 hours.
- To prevent spreading: Use parchment, not grease. Chill your dough before rolling out. Chill dough a second time on the baking sheet just before baking. Don't place dough on a hot baking sheet.
- Decoration variations: Eyes, nose, buttons, and scarf can be piped on with dyed buttercream frosting instead of sprinkles if desired. Do not add food coloring to white chocolate - it will seize. Mini M&M's make great buttons. Any round sprinkles can be used for eyes and buttons. Cookies can also be dusted with coarse white sugar to add 'snow' texture.
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!