St. Patrick's Day Sugar Cookies

St. Patrick's Day Sugar Cookies are easy, soft cut-out cookies and bake up just slightly puffed.

Jump to:

• Why You'll Love These Cookies
• Cookie Baking Advice
• Ingredients
• How to Make Shamrock Cookies:
• St. Patrick's Day Sugar Cookie Tips
• Recipe Notes
• Substitutions
• Sugar Cookie Storage
• Cut-out Cookie Tips for Success
• Recipe
• Comments

These decorated sugar cookies are a way for you to celebrate the driving of the snakes out of Ireland without drinking a green beer or making corned beef and cabbage.

That bit about the snakes, by the way, is an allegory.

This sugar cookie recipe is easy and gives you a soft, fluffy cookie that holds its shape as long as you chill your dough twice.

• You'll chill the dough after mixing it.
• Then you'll chill the dough once more after rolling it out and cutting into shapes before you bake the cookies.

That second chill helps cut-out cookies keep their shape while baking.

Why You'll Love These Cookies

• These cut-outs will be soft and slightly puffed when done
• Customizable: leave plain or decorate with sanding sugar after baking or decorate with frosting. 
• Not too sweet but definitely satisfying. One cookie is perfect with tea or coffee or a glass of green beer.

Get a Shamrock Cookie Cutter.

You could use this cut-out sugar cookie recipe for other holidays besides a St. Patrick's Day Sugar Cookie such as Easter or Christmas or Valentine's Day.

Ingredients

• flour
• baking powder
• kosher salt
• butter
• granulated sugar
• eggs
• vanilla

See recipe card for quantities.

How to Make Shamrock Cookies:

• Beat butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in large mixing bowl.

• Add dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly incorporated.
• Divide the dough in half, wrap each half in plastic or a resealable bag and chill for at least an hour.
• Once you're ready to roll out the dough, let it rest on a countertop at room temperature for five minutes.

• Roll out the dough, one half at a time, between two sheets of parchment paper. 
• If your dough seems a bit sticky, you could lightly flour the parchment paper.
• Cut out the dough into shapes while still on the parchment paper.
• Transfer the parchment paper onto a cookie sheet and put the sheet in the fridge or freezer for at least a half an hour to chill. 
• Chilling the shaped cut outs before baking helps them keep their shape. 

Bake, let cool, then decorate. 

St. Patrick's Day Sugar Cookie Tips

Recipe Notes

If you roll out the dough to a quarter-inch thick and use a two-inch cookie cutter, you should be able to get at least ten cookies from each half of dough.

This recipe should yield a total of 20 cookies give or take one or two from the batch as long as your cookie cutter isn't too tiny or too large.

If you don't have or don't want to buy a shamrock cutter, use a round cookie cutter to just make circle cookies.

They will still be festive with the green sanding sugar decoration.

No round cutter, use a glass, preferably an upside down wine glass to cut out circles in the dough.

You may have scraps of dough left.

Either re-roll the scraps or just bake them as is for your helpers to nibble.

You shouldn't have any sticky sugar cookie dough sticking to your countertops if you're rolling out your dough between sheets of parchment paper.

Be sure to:

• measure ingredients correctly
• roll out the dough at the proper temperature, not too warm, too cold
• follow the directions

Hint: Make sure you roll out your dough between two sheets of parchment paper. That way you can simply transfer your parchment sheet of cut-out shapes onto a baking sheet for chilling.

I like to use this parchment and this rolling pin, which has guides to help you roll out your dough to an even quarter inch.

Get a St. Patrick's Day Cookie Cutter to make these St. Patrick's Day Sugar Cookies.

I like that cutter because it's 2.5 inches so you can get a fair amount of shamrock cookie cutouts made without making double or triple batches of dough.

But you're not making such tiny cookies that it takes hours to decorate them all.

Substitutions

• Butter - you can use margarine or shortening
• Vanilla Extract - substitute with almond or orange extract or orange juice if you have no extract.

I use this rolling pin, which has guides on either end to help you roll out your sugar cookie dough to an even thickness every time.

But use whatever rolling pin you have.

If you don't have a rolling pin, you could use a wine bottle or something similar.

Just be sure the bottle is clean and that you sprinkle a little flour on it first so it doesn't stick to the dough.

Sugar Cookie Storage

Store cookies, decorated or undecorated, at room temperature in an airtight container for up to a week.

Freeze unbaked dough in a freezer-safe container for up to three months.

You can also freeze undecorated, baked cookies, if well-wrapped that is, for up to three months.

Cut-out Cookie Tips for Success

Make sure your butter is the right temperature.

You should be able to just make an indent with your finger into the stick.

If the stick of butter looks greasy, it's too warm.

If the butter is so cold that it's hard to beat, then it won't aerate properly with the sugar and your yield will be reduced.

If you make this recipe please leave a comment and/or give the recipe a rating. Thanks! 🙂

If you make the recipe, tag me @kitchenserf on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok.

More recipes:

Lemon Shortbread Hearts are another easy cut-out cookie recipe.

If you want to skip rolling out dough all together, try Pastel Cookies or Best Mexican Snowballs or Kentucky Butter Cake Cookies with Cake Mix.