Besides autumn leaves, sunflowers are one of my favorite “fall” cookies. They are simple to make, but pretty enough to impress. They are also very versatile and allow plenty of room for you to add your own creative touches.
To make pretty sunflower cookies you will need:
- golden yellow piping and flood icing {I mixed egg yolk yellow, ivory, and a touch of warm brown}
- brown twenty-second icing
- moss green piping icing
- brown or clear sanding sugar
Begin with a flower shaped cookie. I’ve found one that I like to use for sunflowers, but any flower cutter will do as long as it has several petals. If it’s not quite as “sunflower-y” as you’d like, just use icing to correct the shape. That’s what I did here…
You’ll get the best results by setting aside two days to work on these. One for flooding, and the second for details. It sounds like a long time, but between baking and decorating, it’s really only about three to four hours of work.
Every once in a while I like to break it down like that because people often shy away from decorated cookies because they have a reputation for taking FOREVER to make.
Often, it DOES take two days to finish a set of cookies, the majority is of that is DRYING time rather than work time.
That said, lets get back to cookies…
Outline the sunflower using a #2 tip, flood, and let them dry overnight.
The next day, use brown 20-second icing to add centers. You can wing it, but if you’re after perfection, use something round {I chose a cookie cutter} to trace a circle onto your cookie with an edible marker. This will give you a guide to follow so all your cookies will be uniform. Let the icing set slightly, then sprinkle with sanding sugar.
A little tip from an old pro…if you don’t have brown sanding sugar, clear will work.
Actually, clear sanding sugar works for almost anything. The base icing shows through the sugar, so as long as you have clear on hand, you pretty much always have the color you need.
To finish up, outline the petals to give them a little definition then go around the center with green dots. Let the cookies dry.
Just an FYI, it is possible to make this project a one day job. If you plan ahead and pre-make flower centers, this is a three step, one day cookie project.
You can find out how to use leftover royal icing to pre-make perfect flower centers HERE.
Sunflowers are simple, pretty, and the perfect addition to your Thanksgiving spread. They’re also a great cookie for beginners. They look difficult, but they really aren’t. And they don’t take a gazillion icing colors either!
Don’t be afraid to give these a try. Your friends and family will rave, I promise.
Beautiful! These would make a great gift for friends in Kansas (where sunflowers are the state flower).
I love these cookies and especially the leaves. How do you get the dots to look like water drops on the leaves. Your attention to detail is amazing!
I have this cutter and have never been truly happy with the cookies I’ve made. I may try it again.
I’m so discouraged right now. I tried to make these sunflowers today but I can’t seem to get the flood icing to come our right. I have a friend who does a lot of cake & cookie decorating and has her own version of RI. Her RI instructions are in reverse of yours – wet ingredients into mixer first, then dry. So I followed her instructions. I have a lovely piping icing from it, but when I tried to thin it for flooding, it eventually started to separate and look like curdled milk. So, I started over and this time I did it in the order of your instructions, dry ingredients, then wet. The recipes are very similar but hers is smaller and I know I like the flavor, but it eventually started to look grainy rather than smooth and when I tried to actually flood a cookie with it, it had separated and didn’t work at all. Advice?
These cookies look amazing. Not a friendly kid recipe though with all the details that are in them. Where did you find the cookie cutters at? Thanks for the step by step guide as well.
Ok, please ignore my earlier post, I just figured out where I went wrong. The recipe I was using called for shortening and though I can compared it to a bunch of other recipes, I realize now I didn’t compare it your yours. I always seem to learn things the hard way…. LOL
these are cookies!? When I first looked at the picture I didn’t believe it! Sunflowers are my favorite
ummmm these r cute and cool but it doesnt show the ingredients for the cookie so if u could please post that it would be great thanks
My cookie recipe is under the recipe tab in the roll out cookies category. I have it posted in Metric and Standard
how sweet. I love these