Iced Maple Leaf Sugar Cookies

Soft baked, iced maple leaf sugar cookies, spiced with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon, and glazed with sweet maple icing. These beautifully decorated maple sugar cookies hold their shape perfectly when they’re baked, but still have a wonderful soft, buttery texture. The maple glaze is a simple recipe for royal icing, easy enough for even inexperienced cookie decorators to make.

You might also like these holiday recipes for cranberry pecan shortbread cookies with orange icing, buttercream frosted Christmas tree sugar cookies, and Linzer cookies with bourbon cherry jam.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Soft, not Crunchy. These maple glazed cut out cookies have a soft, buttery texture, similar to shortbread cookies, that’s just delicious with the maple icing. They stay soft for days after baking, too. And even though the maple royal icing dries and crusts over on the surface, it stays soft underneath for a cookie that everyone will love.

Perfect Cutout Cookie Recipe. You’ll love how this no spread maple sugar cookie recipe holds its shape perfectly, with sharp edges that look as pretty coming out of the oven as they did going in.

Perfect for Fall. Iced maple leaf cookies would make a gorgeous addition to a Thanksgiving dinner table, with a pretty decorated cookie at each guest’s place setting. And with the maple extract, they taste like pancakes, which is always a win in my house.

High Altitude Tested. While I develop everything on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet, today’s sugar cookie recipe will work great at any altitude with no adjustments needed.

Minimal Decorating. I won’t claim to be an expert cookie decorator, but I can make a decent looking iced cookie with a simple flooding technique. And I do believe that with a little practice, anyone can master making royal icing for beautifully decorated iced cookies that look as professional as the ones you’d buy from a bakery. The icing is easy to make, and I’ve included step by step photos to guide you through the process of icing your cookies. And for a minimal but pretty finish, a sprinkling of shimmery bronze and gold luster dust looks really lovely on the icing.

Tools and Equipment

• Food Processor or Pastry Cutter. I prefer a food processor to make my sugar cookie dough. It just makes the whole process much quicker and easier. You can use a pastry cutter, too, though.
• Rolling Pin and Cookie Cutters. To cut your cookies, you’ll need maple leaf cookie cutters. I used a 3 1/2 inch cookie cutter for the large cookies, as well as a 2 inch pie crust leaf cutter with a plunger for smaller cookies.
• Piping Bag. For icing the cookies.
• Electric Mixer (Stand or Hand-Held). For mixing the royal icing.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

Cookies

• Flour. All-purpose flour gives the cookie dough structure and strength.
• Powdered Sugar. Sweetens the dough, while the fine texture makes a more tender cookie than if you used granulated sugar.
• Salt. Balances the sweetness.
• Spices. A blend of cardamom, cinnamon and cloves is a nice complement to the maple flavoring.
• Butter. Makes a rich, tender buttery cookie.
• Vanilla + Maple Extract. Flavor.
• Whole Milk. Moistens the dough and binds it together.

Icing

• Powdered Sugar. Sweetens and thickens the icing.
• Meringue Powder. Helps the icing to dry and set.
• Vanilla + Maple Extract. Flavor.
• Water. Thins the icing to desired consistency for piping or flooding.
• Luster Dust. Luster dust is an edible, shimmery powder used for cookie and cake decorating. I used bronze and gold to decorate my iced maple leaf cookies.

Instructions

Make the Cookie Dough

• In your food processor, pulse the flour, powdered sugar, salt and spices until combined. With the processor running, drop in the pieces of butter, one at at time, pulsing a few times until the butter is evenly distributed, and the dough is moistened and crumbly. Add the vanilla extract, maple extract and the milk, then process until the dough starts to stick together.
• Dump the dough out onto a clean counter and use your hands to finish bringing the dough together, kneading in any stray bits of flour. The dough should be soft, smooth and supple.
• Shape the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Prepare two baking sheets by lining them with sheets of parchment paper.

Roll the Dough and Cut the Cookies

• On a lightly floured surface, place the disk of dough, and dust the top of the dough with flour, too. Roll out to an even thickness of between 1/4 -1/8 inch thick.

• Use a maple leaf cutter to cut as many cookies as you can, placing the cut cookies 2 inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.Gather up the scraps of dough, roll them out again, and continue cutting as many cookies as you can.

TIP: With a 3 1/2 inch maple leaf cutter, you’ll be able to cut about 2 dozen cookies. Or just cut 18 cookies, and cut the rest of the dough with a smaller 2 inch maple leaf cutter for a variety of sizes.

• Place the baking sheets with the cut cookies in the refrigerator and chill for 1 hour (or freeze for 30 minutes) – chilling the cut cookies helps to ensure they don’t spread and hold their shape perfectly while baking.

Bake the Cookies

• Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Bake the chilled cookies on the center oven rack for about 10 minutes. The tops should be a very pale golden with no dark browning, and you should see tiny flaky layers around the edges. (The small 2-inch cookies will only need to bake for about 6-7 minutes.)
• Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the pan, then very gently transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely.Sugar cookies are delicate when warm, so handle with care.

Make the Icing

• In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar and meringue powder. Add the vanilla extract, maple extract, and 3 tablespoons of the water, and stir everything together with a spatula.

• Now use an electric mixer (hand held is fine) to mix the icing on the lowest speed for 2 minutes, until smooth and well combined. Scrape the bowl down and mix for 30 more seconds.
• Check the icing consistency by letting the icing drip off a spatula back into the bowl and counting to 5. The icing should be thin enough that what drips off the spatula should disappear into the bowl of icing by the count of 5. If it’s too thick and holds its shape for longer than 5 seconds, stir in more water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until the consistency is just right. The icing is now a “flooding” consistency, which is perfect for glazing over the cookies.

• Place a piping bag in a tall glass, and fold the bag over the edge of the glass to position it upright. Fill the bag half full of icing, then twist the top of the bag closed and secure with a rubber band. If you don’t secure the top of the bag, the icing can run out the top while you’re decorating the cookies. Cover the remaining bowl of icing with plastic wrap or a damp paper towel, so you can refill the piping bag as needed.

Ice the Cookies

• Lay out the cooled cookies on a baking sheet or other work surface. Snip a small amount off the tip of the piping bag.
• Working with one cookie at a time, pipe an outline onto the cookie, but don’t get too close to the edge, or the icing can drip off. Immediately fill in the center of the cookie with icing; don’t worry if there are gaps. Now take a toothpick or a cookie decorating “scribe” needle, and push the icing around to fill in any gaps and to neaten the outline, if needed. Place the iced cookie back onto the baking sheet.

• Once all the cookies are iced, let them sit, undisturbed, until the surface of the icing is completely dry to the touch, about 1 hour.

TIP: If you want to decorate the cookies with sprinkles or sparkling sugar, you’ll need to do that right away before the icing dries, or the sprinkles won’t stick.

Decorate the Cookies

• Once the cookies are dry, you can decorate with luster dust.
• For the minimal, speckled look in today’s post, dip a small craft brush in luster dust. Hold the brush a few inches above the cookies, then lightly blow the dust off the brush onto the cookies.
• For more vivid color, brush the dust directly onto the icing.

Storing and Freezing

• Storing Iced Cookies. Let the icing on the cookies dry and harden for at least 6-8 hours, before stacking or storing the cookies. Once fully dry, you can store the cookies in an airtight container. It’s fine to stack the cookies at this point, separated by sheets parchment paper.
• Storing the Baked Cookies without Icing:  Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days.  If you won’t be frosting and decorating them immediately, freeze the cookies in an airtight container for 3-6 months.
• Freezing the Dough:  To make the dough in advance, wrap the disks of dough in plastic wrap, label them, and refrigerate for up to 5 days, or freeze for 3-6 months.  Frozen dough should be thawed overnight in the refrigerator.  Then take the dough out of the fridge about 1 hour before you’re ready to roll out the dough.  It should still be cool to the touch when you roll it out, but pliable enough to roll without too much difficulty.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do you use maple extract instead of maple syrup?

I love pure maple syrup on my waffles and pancakes. But maple extract has a much more concentrated flavor, which works well for today’s iced maple leaf cookies. You’d need much more syrup to get the same amount of flavor, which would ruin the texture of the cookies.

Can I add food coloring to the icing?

Yes, you can add a few drops of gel food coloring.

Do I have to use the meringue powder in the icing?

Yes, when making royal icing, meringue powder is a necessary ingredient to help the icing set and dry. Without it, the icing would stay soft and sticky.

Can I frost these maple leaf cookies with buttercream instead of icing?

Buttercream is delicious on sugar cookies. You can try this maple buttercream icing recipe for frosting your cookies. Note that you will need to store the frosted cookies in a single layer, since the buttercream will be ruined if you stack the cookies.

How do I make the dough if I don’t have a food processor?

If you don’t have a food processor, you’ll need a large bowl and a pastry cutter.  In the bowl, combine the flour, sugar, spices and salt.  Scatter with the cold butter pieces and use the pastry cutter to cut the butter in until very finely cut and evenly distributed.  Combine the extracts and the milk, drizzle over the dough, then use your hands to work the liquid into the dry ingredients until it forms into a soft dough.

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