These snowman cookies are perfect for celebrating the start of the holiday season! Soft sugar cookies are decorated with vanilla frosting, chocolate, and candies to make these adorable little melting snowmen. Customize them any way you’d like, or follow these instructions for a cute and festive winter treat.
Ah, the holiday season. There simply is no better time to bake your way through every recipe you can find! It’s cold outside, the smell of fresh baked cookies (like this Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe!) adds to the decor, and you probably have someone nearby that you can share with if the temptation to eat them all in one sitting hits.
These adorable little snowman cookies are just the right mix of cute and easy. They are the perfect thing to celebrate the season.
- Feeling festive but not homemade-cut-and-frosted-sugar-cookie kind of festive? These snowman Christmas cookies are perfect for little hands!
- Want to make something cute with the kids but not in a candy-covered-disastrous-gingerbread-house kind of mood? Make these instead!
- Heading to a cookie exchange party and need a last minute dessert to share? Perfect!
Whatever you’re preparing for this holiday season, a plate of these fun cookies is sure to bring some holiday spirit. And the best part is that you do not need to be a professional baker to make them!
Why Make This Recipe
- Fun Activity for the Family: This is more of a decorating recipe than a baking recipe, because you can use any cookie under the frosting. This is just a way to make your simple sugar cookies fun! You could also allow some little helpers to get involved if you wanted to make this a fun activity for the whole family.
- Cute & Festive Recipe: Tis the season to make everything festive! Why make boring sugar cookies when you can make these?
- Easy to Do: While these cookies look adorable, they could not be easier to put together. If you don’t have much time to spend on the fine details, skip all the work and use pre-made dough. No one will notice.
What Do I Need To Make This Recipe?
Ingredients
Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the recipe at the bottom for quantities.
- Break and Bake Sugar Cookie Dough: You can use any dough you like for these cute cookies but if you want to keep things simple and avoid making an extra mess, just use the pre-made dough.
- White Frosting: Again, any frosting will do. You can make your own or just open a can! I’ve also seen white chocolate or candy melts used, but it solidifies quickly and can be difficult to work with.
- Marshmallows: The big ones. You can cut them in half if you like for a smaller head.
- Decorations: You’ll need Twizzlers, orange sprinkles, miniature chocolate chips, pearl sprinkles, and brown or black decorating piping gel. You can substitute for any of these things if you like. As long as you’ve got what you need to make eyes, a nose, a mouth and some buttons, you should be good to go!
Tools
- Cookie Sheet
- Microwave-safe Bowl
How to Make This Recipe
Instructions
Step 1: Bake the Cookies
Preheat the oven according to the sugar cookie package instructions.
Combine 2 cookie dough pieces together and shape the dough into a cookie dough ball. Place on an ungreased baking sheet.
Repeat until you have 12 cookie dough balls.
Bake the cookies according to the package instructions. Once baked, remove from the oven, transfer to a wire rack and allow them to cool completely.
Step 2: Frost the Cookies
When it is time to decorate, place the frosting in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for about 10-15 seconds until the frosting has turned thinner and liquidy but is not completely melted.
Use a spoon to scoop the frosting (about 1-2 tbsp each) onto each of the cooled cookies and spread around the top of the cookies in the shape of a puddle.
Step 3: Decorate the Body
Place marshmallow on top of each cookie towards one of the edges as the head of your melted snowman.
Carefully remove 2 connected strands from the Pull ‘n Peel Twizzlers. Wrap these strands around the bottom of the marshmallows to resemble scarves. You can even separate the strands very slightly at each end so that it resembles the ends of a scarf.
Decorate the Face
Stick one end of an orange sprinkle in the center of the marshmallow to form a snowman nose.
In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave the mini chocolate chips for 30 seconds. Remove from the microwave, stir, and microwave for another 30 seconds. Repeat this process until the chocolate is completely melted.
Dip a toothpick or the end of a chopstick into the melted chocolate and place two dots above the carrot nose (eyes) and one large dot below the carrot nose (a surprised mouth expression).
Place 3 pearl sprinkles on the frosting of the cookie, forming buttons for the snowman.
Use the brown or black piping gel to pipe arms on either side of the buttons.
Serve and enjoy!
Adjustments and Substitutions
Can’t find what you need? Want to add more details? Follow these tips to customize your snowman cookies:
- Making the arms of the snowman can be tricky. You can omit the piping gel for arms if you desire. The snowmen are just as cute without arms!
- You could incorporate some mini Reese’s peanut butter cups into your design if you would like. They make a very cute top hat for your snowman. Melt a little bit of chocolate on the top of the Reese’s to stick the peanut butter cup hats to each marshmallow head.
- You can use mini chocolate chips as buttons if you don’t want to use/can’t find pearl sprinkles.
- If you can’t find twizzlers, you can also use piping gel to pipe scarves onto the snowmen.
- You can also use royal icing for the snowman’s puddle if you’d like.
Using Homemade Dough
If you are not using store bought cookie dough, you can make your dough from scratch! A sugar cookie base will work, but you can also use any base you’d like. These Fast and Easy Maple Cookies would be a deliciously festive choice.
Once your dough is made, roll about 2 ½ tbsp of the cookie dough together to create cookies of the same size.
Make sure your dough does not have too much flour. You want nice, round cookies that have lots of flat space for decorating.
Expert Tips:
- I highly recommend using the back of a chopstick to make the perfect circles on the snowman’s face. Use a “little” dip in chocolate to make the two smaller eye circles. Dip the chopstick in more chocolate to form a larger mouth.
- You will probably need to bake your cookies on 2 cookie sheets (6 on a sheet) to allow the cookies room to spread.
- If you want to be extra fancy you can melt the heads for just a few seconds in the microwave to make the whole snowman look like he is melting. Spray a plate with non-stick spray and place the marshmallows on the plate. Microwave for just a few seconds until they begin to melt slightly. Let them cool before moving them to your cookie.
- Try adding a drop or two of peppermint extract to your frosting to give this easy cookie recipe a little oomph.
FAQs
You can use any dough you like for this recipe! Try it with peanut butter cookies or even snickerdoodles. Just make sure whatever recipe you use produces flat cookies.
Yes, you can store these little snowmen in an airtight container for up to four days before serving. Be aware that the longer you store them, the more stale your marshmallows may become.
Yes, you can freeze these snowman cookies by putting them in an airtight container in the freezer and then thawing them at room temperature on the counter or in the fridge before serving.
If you decide to freeze the cookies I recommend waiting to add the piping gel, as it can sometimes run during the thawing process. Add the piping gel just before serving.
Did you like this recipe for Snowman Cookies? If so, make sure to check out these other Christmas Cookies I picked out just for you:
- Pecan Snowball Cookies
- Hot Buttered Rum Cookies
- Italian Pistachio Cookie Recipe
- Quick and Easy Gingerbread Truffles
Melted Snowman Cookies
Equipment
- Cookie Sheet
- Mixing Bowl(s)
- Pastry Bag and Tips
- Oven Mitt
- Toothpicks
Ingredients
- 16 oz Sugar Cookie Dough , or desired sugar cookie recipe, with 24 cookies total
- 1 ½ cups white Frosting
- 12 large marshmallows
- 4 Pull ‘n Peel Twizzlers
- 12 orange sprinkles
- ¼ cup mini chocolate chips
- 36 pearl sprinkles, any color
- decorating piping gel, Brown or black
Instructions
- Preheat the oven according to the sugar cookie package instructions.
- Combine 2 cookie dough pieces together from the 16 oz package and roll between your palms to form a cookie dough ball. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat until you have 12 cookie dough balls.
- Bake the cookies according to the package instructions. Once baked, remove from the oven and allow them to cool completely.
- When it is time to decorate, place the frosting in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for about 10-15 seconds until the frosting has turned thinner and liquidy but is not completely melted.
- Use a spoon to scoop the frosting (about 1-2 tbsp each) onto each cookie and spread around the cookie in the shape of a puddle.
- Place a marshmallow on top of each cookie towards one of the edges.
- Carefully remove 2 connected strands from the Pull ‘n Peel Twizzlers. Wrap these strands around the bottom of the marshmallows to resemble scarves. You can even separate the strands very slightly at each end so that it resembles the ends of a scarf.
- Stick one end of an orange sprinkle in the center of the marshmallow to form a snowman nose.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave the ¼ cup mini chocolate chips for 30 seconds. Remove from the microwave, stir, and microwave for another 30 seconds. Repeat this process until the chocolate is completely melted.
- Dip a toothpick or the end of a chopstick into the melted chocolate and place two dots above the carrot nose (eyes) and one large dot below the carrot nose (a surprised mouth expression).
- Place 3 pearl sprinkles on the frosting of the cookie, forming buttons for the snowman.
- Use the brown piping gel to pipe arms on either side of the buttons.
- Serve and enjoy!
Video
Notes
- Break and Bake Sugar Cookie Dough: You can use any dough you like for these cute cookies but if you want to keep things simple and avoid making an extra mess, just use the pre-made dough.
- White Frosting: Again, any frosting will do. You can make your own or just open a can! I’ve also seen white chocolate or candy melts used, but it solidifies quickly and can be difficult to work with.
- Marshmallows: The big ones. You can cut them in half if you like for a smaller head.
- Decorations: You’ll need Twizzlers, orange sprinkles, miniature chocolate chips, pearl sprinkles, and brown or black decorating piping gel. You can substitute for any of these things if you like. As long as you’ve got what you need to make eyes, a nose, a mouth and some buttons, you should be good to go!
- I highly recommend using the back of a chopstick to make the perfect circles on the snowman’s face. Use a “little” dip in chocolate to make the two smaller eye circles. Dip the chopstick in more chocolate to form a larger mouth.
- You will probably need to bake your cookies on 2 cookie sheets (6 on a sheet) to allow the cookies room to spread.
- If you want to be extra fancy you can melt the heads for just a few seconds in the microwave to make the whole snowman look like he is melting. Spray a plate with non-stick spray and place the marshmallows on the plate. Microwave for just a few seconds until they begin to melt slightly. Let them cool before moving them to your cookie.
- Try adding a drop or two of peppermint extract to your frosting to give this easy cookie recipe a little oomph.
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