These minion cookies are absolutely adorable and really easy to make, even if you’re new to royal icing.
Minions are arguably everyone’s favorite characters from the Despicable Me franchise (if you know what’s best for you), and I’ve gotten so many requests over the years for decorated minion cookies for minion birthday parties and other kid-friendly events.
These cookies are made with a sugar cookie base and royal icing, which sounds intimidating to a lot of people, but really isn’t once you follow my easy-to-mimic guidelines.
These cookies also only require a couple of different colors of icing, nothing crazy, and you can make the circles for minion cookies with a cup – you don’t even need a cookie cutter.
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How to Make the Sugar Cookie Base
The best sugar cookie base I’ve ever come across is this cut-out sugar cookie recipe.
Friends and family rave over it, and it produces a really soft cookie if you take the cookies out of the oven at just about 8 minutes or riggghttt when the edges go golden brown.
I’ve actually started using honey instead of vanilla extract for a really wonderful taste, but you can use vanilla extract as the recipe originally calls for.
For the minion cookies, all you need to do is cut the dough into circles after it’s chilled (more information on the recipe linked above), and if you don’t have a circular cookie cutter, use the top of a cup!
Must-Have Baking Tools (seriously)
- Silicone baking mats – I use this brand and my cookies slide right off without burning!
- a cookie scoop – get this one. It makes the perfect rounded cookies every time!
- silicone spatula – try this set. It’s the best way to get the most out of your dough and batters
- rolling pin guides – I use this one. Genius way to roll your dough out evenly!
How to Make Royal Icing
Making royal icing can be done with fresh egg whites or with meringue powder, or even “royal icing” that is sold in stores where you just add water.
I have a recipe for royal icing with meringue powder for you to check out, which can be made while the cookies are baking.
Royal Icing Tips and Tricks
When using royal icing, you want to make sure that you’re putting enough icing on the cookie as the base “flood” to make sure it dries over smoothly – if you don’t put enough, it will crater and won’t fill in correctly.
You should also hold the piping bag between your thumb and forefinger, about an inch off the cookie, rather than holding it like a pencil right up close to the cookie.
There are plenty more tips and tricks on decorating with royal icing in my guide.
How to Decorate Minion Cookies
Start by coloring your icing into yellow, grey, black, and white piping bags.
Flood the whole cookie in one coat of yellow, and leave to dry for at least 30 minutes.
Draw a circle with grey icing, and immediately fill it in with grey.
Let that dry for another 15 minutes, and then outline and fill in two black glasses lines on either side.
Then, let this dry for another hour or so before adding a smile below and adding a layer of white on top.
Then, while it is still wet, add a circle of brown and another circle of black to finish off the eyes.
