Sugar cookies are fabulous, but adding an extra level of flavor changes everything. Brown butter sugar cookies, or vanilla bean shamrock St. Patrick’s Day cookies, anyone?
Why You’ll Love These Maple Cinnamon Star Cookies
Like my Christmas sugar cookies, today’s sugar cookie recipe is cookie cutter style. We get the same great flavor combination as these maple pecan snickerdoodles, but we’ll roll the dough out and cut into adorable stars. What makes these stars unique are the flavors mingling inside: cinnamon + maple. Combine these two powerhouse flavors with shimmering gold sprinkles, edible glitter stars, and white chocolate and we’ve got a sugar cookie putting many others to shame. You’ll love these cookies and here’s why:
Elegant and festive Lots of warm cinnamon spice with sweet maple flavor Perfect for celebrations of any kind like holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays Fuss-free decorating—a simple dunk into white chocolate No royal icing needed Fun to make!
Video Tutorial
How to Make Maple Cinnamon Star Cookies
Helpful Baker’s Tip
Have a little flour nearby when you’re rolling out the cookie dough. Keep your work surface, hands, and rolling pin lightly floured. This is a relatively soft dough.
The Order of Steps is Important
Notice how I roll out the dough BEFORE chilling it in the refrigerator? That’s my trick and you can see me doing it in my sugar cookies video tutorial. Let me explain why I do this. To prevent the cookies from over-spreading, the cookie dough must chill in the refrigerator. Roll out the dough right after you prepare it, then chill the rolled-out dough. (At this point the dough is too soft to cut into shapes.) Don’t chill the cookie dough and then try to roll it out because it will be too cold and difficult to work with. I divide the dough in half before rolling it out and highly recommend you do the same. Smaller sections of dough are simply more manageable. Another trick! Roll out the cookie dough directly on a silicone baking mat or parchment paper so you can easily transfer it to the refrigerator. Pick it up, put it on a baking sheet, and place it in the refrigerator. If you don’t have enough room for two baking sheets in your refrigerator, stack the pieces of rolled out dough on top of each other.
Maple Cinnamon Star Cookie Decorations
Let’s keep the garnishes simple—this way the cookie’s flavor can truly shine. Here are a few ideas for maple cinnamon star cookie decorations:
White Chocolate: Instead of decorating with traditional royal icing, give the maple cinnamon sugar cookies a dip in melted white chocolate chocolate. For best taste and texture, I strongly recommend using pure white chocolate, not white chocolate chips. It’s usually sold in 4 ounce bars in the baking aisle. I love Ghirardelli, Bakers, or Nestle brands. Dark Chocolate: Try a drizzle of dark chocolate! All these flavors pair wonderfully together. Gold Sprinkles: I love this simple gold sparkly sugar and this gold sprinkle mix. Press the sprinkles down into the cookies before baking—this helps the sprinkles stick. Just use the back of a spoon. Gold Stars: How CUTE are these edible gold glitter stars?! Add the edible glitter stars after pressing the other sprinkles down. I don’t suggest doing this before pressing the others down because the stars will stick to your spoon instead of the cookie.
Or if you want to go all out, here’s my full tutorial (video included) on how to decorate sugar cookies.
One Last Success Tip
Use maple extract—not pure maple syrup. While I typically reach for the latter in my baking, sugar cookie dough is notoriously picky when it comes to add-ins. Maple extract is potent and a little goes a long way. We’d need a few Tablespoons of pure maple syrup to achieve the same flavor that only 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of maple extract has. This larger amount of pure syrup would radically change the sugar cookie dough because there would be too much liquid. We could add more flour to make up for it, but the cookies would be dry. It’s frustrating! To avoid all this, use the maple flavoring. (I use it in my maple brown sugar cookies, too!)
