Easy Sugar Cookie Recipe for Decorating

Once you've prepared your cookie dough, you'll roll it onto your kitchen counter to flatten and cut into pumpkin cookies.

Once the dough is roughly a quarter of an inch thick, press the pumpkin cutter into it.

Use a spatula to lift and transfer dough onto ungreased aluminum baking sheets or silicon mats and bake for 10-14 minutes.

While cookies bake, you may clean your mixing bowl and make your frosting. Combine unsalted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, heavy cream, lemon juice (if using), and salt. Beat for about 3 minutes.

Then, divide your buttercream. Place about 10% of it in a small bowl and use food gel to dye it green. This will be for your pumpkin’s stem and leaves or vines.

Take the remaining frosting and dye it into however many colors you’d like for your pumpkin spice sugar cookies. I wanted a mix of orange and white pumpkins so dyed half of my leftover buttercream orange.

After your cookies have cooled and buttercream is ready, load pumpkin frosting into one piping bag, fitted with a small open round or open star tip. I used tip 32 and switched to 12 halfway through for variety.

Next, create semi circular lines from the top of the pumpkin, following along the curve of its shape and connecting the top to the bottom.

Continue filling in frosting until cookie is covered.

Put your green buttercream in a small piping bag fitted with an open tip to create the stem and vines. I used tip 8.

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