Adorable Snowman Cookies Recipe

I make these snowman cookies when everyone wants snow on the cookie, not just the ground. They’re stacked sugar cookies dipped in white glaze and rolled in coconut, so each one looks like a little snowman. I keep the dough plain so the kids can do the decorating. The chill and the glaze are what make or break them, and I’ll show you how to get both right.

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, I earn a small commission. Thank you!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• The dough is four ingredients you’ve probably got already: butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, with a little vanilla for warmth.
• It’s a decorating project more than a baking one, so it works with young kids at the table.
• You cut and stack plain circles, so there’s no fiddly cutter shape to get right, though you can make a cutout at the center if you like.
• The coconut does the work of looking like snow, so even a rushed, uneven glaze still reads as a snowman.
• They’ll sit happily in a tin for a week, so you can bake them ahead of a party or box them up as a gift.

Ingredients You’ll Need

You’ll need all the ingredients in the photograph below.

• Butter. Unsalted, left out until it’s soft enough to cream easily. Cold butter fights the sugar and leaves you with a grainy dough. If you’d rather skip butter altogether, my Sugar Cookies Without Butter is a separate oil-based dough that bakes up soft.
• Sugar. Plain granulated sugar for the dough. The glaze uses confectioners’ sugar, which is a different thing, so keep the two straight when you measure.
• Eggs. Two whole eggs bind the dough and keep the baked cookie tender rather than crumbly.
• All-purpose flour. Spoon the flour into the cup and level it; packing the cup is the quickest way to a dry, floury cookie.
• Coconut flakes. This is the snow. You only need a quarter cup, pressed into the wet glaze so it sticks.
• Red food coloring and a black edible marker. Red is for the nose, and the marker gives you more control over small eyes than a piping bag does.

How to Make Snowman Cookies

A complete printable recipe and the measurements in both US customary and metric are available in the recipe card below.

Make and Chill the Dough

Cream the soft butter and sugar together until it’s pale and smooth, then beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the flour last and bring it into a dough without overworking it.

Wrap it and chill it for at least two hours. This is the step people skip, and skipping it is why cookies spread into puddles in the oven. If you want to get ahead, make the dough a day early and leave it wrapped in the fridge overnight, then let it sit out for about twenty minutes before you roll it, because a long chill leaves it too firm to work.

Roll, Cut, and Stack

It’s a plain roll-out sugar cookie dough, the kind you chill, roll, and cut. If you’ve baked my Christmas Sugar Cookies, you already know how it handles. Halve and roll the chilled dough to about a quarter inch thick on a floured surface.

You’re cutting two shapes for each snowman: a large circle with a small cut-out for the lower body, and a large circle with a smaller circle sitting on top for the head. No snowman cutter is required; a big round cutter and a small one do it.

Bake

Bake at 180°C for eight to ten minutes, until the edges are just barely golden. Pull them before they color all over. They’ll keep cooking on the hot tray for a minute after they come out, and an over-baked sugar cookie turns hard. Let them cool completely on a rack before you go near the glaze, because glaze on a warm cookie slides straight off.

Decorate

Split the confectioners’ sugar glaze into two, then tint one half red and the other half in water. Dip each cooled cookie into the white glaze, add coconut, and add red to the belly.

Let the bottom cookie set for a few minutes before you stack the head on top, or the two slide apart. Finish the face with the black marker once the glaze is dry to the touch.

Recipe Notes and Expert Tips

• Get the glaze right before you dip anything. You want it to smooth out in a few seconds. Too thick and it sits in lumps; too thin and it runs off the edges and the red bleeds into the white. Add water or confectioners’ sugar a little at a time until it’s right.
• Let each layer dry before you add the next color. If you touch red to wet white glaze, the colors bleed. Give the white a few minutes to set, then add the red belly, then the face last.
• Measure the flour by spooning and leveling. A cup packed straight from the bag can hold far more flour than the recipe means, and that’s what gives you a dry, floury cookie.
• Work in small batches when you decorate. Coconut only sticks to wet glaze, so glaze one or two cookies, press the coconut on, then move to the next rather than glazing the whole tray first.
• Check any decorations beyond the coconut. Some sprinkles and candy shells use shellac or other non-vegetarian glazes. After years of cooking this way, it’s second nature to read the label, and it’s worth a glance before a cookie goes on a child’s plate.

Recipe Variations

• Skip the coconut and dust the wet glaze with powdered sugar, finely grated white chocolate, or edible glitter instead. You lose the texture but keep the snowy look, and it’s what I make for anyone who dislikes coconut.
• For a glossier finish that sets harder, swap the simple glaze for royal icing, with a drop of almond or clear vanilla extract to shift the flavor. It takes longer to dry, so plan for that.
• Give each snowman a face from what’s in the cupboard: mini chocolate chips for eyes, a dot of orange icing for a carrot nose, a candy for a hat. They hold once the glaze underneath is dry.

How to Store Leftovers

Keep the finished cookies in an airtight container at room temperature, where they hold for up to a week. The fridge makes them hard, so leave them out. If you stack them, lay a sheet of parchment between the layers so the glaze doesn’t pull off, and keep the tin away from anywhere humid, which softens both the cookie and the icing.

The dough freezes well for up to a month, wrapped tightly and sealed in a bag. The baked cookies freeze too, but freeze them plain and decorate after they thaw, because the red and black can bleed into the white in the freezer.

What to Serve With Snowman Cookies

These are cookies for standing around a kitchen in December, so the pairings are simple. A mug of hot chocolate is the obvious one; the warmth against the cold, sweet cookie is why it never gets old. For the kids, cold milk; for the grown-ups, coffee or a pot of tea does the same job without the sugar rush.

If you’re building a plate of cookies for a holiday party, set these out next to my No-Roll Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies and Easy Reindeer Christmas Cookies so there’s a whole crowd of characters to choose from.

FAQs

More Cookie Recipes for Your Holiday Baking

A few more from the cookie tin, for when you’re baking a batch anyway.

• Soft Spiced Gingerbread Cookies. When I want a cookie with more spice than sweetness, this is the one I roll out alongside the snowmen.
• Biscoff Sandwich Cookies. These I make a day ahead when I need something that travels well to a party.
• Chocolate Crinkle Cookies. The cracked powdered-sugar tops look like snow too, and they’re a good dark contrast on a plate of pale cookies.
• Butter Pecan Cookies. The grown-up choice in the tin, soft with browned butter and toasted pecans.