Happy St. Patrick’s day! These rainbow sugar cookies are easy to make and fun for everyone! My kids love them! They were amazed how I made a rainbow with the dough and that is all a part of the fun.
I add a little piping of frosting to the ends of the rainbow and sprinkle with gold sprinkles for an extra fun and festive cookie. The frosting also adds the perfect little burst of sweetness. The cookies are not super sweet on their own but more buttery so they work really well with frosting or even if you wanted to dip on end in white chocolate and add some sprinkles.
Rainbows are such beautiful symbols of hope and happiness. The beauty after the storm. We are in the middle of the corona virus or COVID-19 outbreak and the world is completely uncertain and shaken right now. So all we have is hope. So I think celebrating rainbows and the hope they bring is perfectly appropriate, even if it is only on a little cookie that you get to share with your close family and loved ones.
What you need to make rainbow sugar cookies:
makes roughly 36 cookies small cookies
- 1 cup butter – room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/3 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Food coloring for rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple
For frosting:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons cream or milk
- Gold sprinkles – optional
Instructions
- Cream together the butter and powdered sugar until pale yellow.
- Add the egg and vanilla and mix.
- Add flour, baking soda and salt to butter mixture and blend until a dough forms.
- Divide dough into 5 groups.
- Add food coloring to each piece of dough.
- On a floured piece of parchment paper, add the red dough, roll out into a rectangle about 1/4 of an inch thick then set aside.
- Repeat this step with each piece of dough then lay on top of each other in the rainbow order and roll out gently so the dough is roughly 1/2 inch thick.
- starting with one of the long sides of the rectangle begin rolling dough until you get to the half way mark in the dough, then you will roll the other side so both sides are connected by one side and the rolled up side is touching the other rolled up side, it will look kind of like a palmier cookie. Rolling the dough like this helps to get a good arch in the rainbow without making it into a total swirl but you can just divide into 2 rectangles and roll up in a swirl.
- Wrap dough in the parchment paper you rolled it out in and freeze dough for 20-30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Remove dough from freezer and slice down the middle of the rectangle so the rolls become separate and you will have 2 rolls.
- Slice into ~1/3 inch thick slices and place on an un-greased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool.
- Make frosting and pipe little clouds over the ends of the rainbows followed by optional gold sprinkles.
Here are a few other fun St. Patrick’s Day recipes:
- Coconut Lime Frozen Float RECIPE HERE
- St. Patrick’s Day Dinner RECIPE HERE
- Chicken Rainbow Crunch Salad RECIPE HERE
Rainbow sugar cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter – room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/3 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Food coloring for rainbow; red orange, yellow, green, blue and purple
- frosting:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons cream or milk
- Gold sprinkles – optional
Instructions
- Cream together the butter and powdered sugar until pale yellow.
- Add the egg and vanilla and mix.
- Add flour, baking soda and salt to butter mixture and blend until a dough forms.
- Divide dough into 5 groups.
- Add food coloring to each piece of dough.
- On a floured piece of parchment paper, add the red dough, roll out into a rectangle about 1/4 of an inch thick then set aside.
- Repeat this step with each piece of dough then lay on top of each other in the rainbow order and roll out gently so the dough is roughly 1/2 inch thick.
- starting with one of the long sides of the rectangle begin rolling dough until you get to the half way mark in the dough, then you will roll the other side so both sides are connected by one side and the rolled up side is touching the other rolled up side, it will look kind of like a palmier cookie. Rolling the dough like this helps to get a good arch in the rainbow without making it into a total swirl but you can just divide into 2 rectangles and roll up in a swirl.
- Wrap dough in the parchment paper you rolled it out in and freeze dough for 20-30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Remove dough from freezer and slice down the middle of the rectangle so the rolls become separate and you will have 2 rolls.
- Slice into ~1/3 inch thick slices and place on an un-greased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool.
- Make frosting and pipe little clouds over the ends of the rainbows followed by optional gold sprinkles.