These mini fall sugar cookies combine soft sugar cookies with sweet, fall-colored buttercream frosting and festive sprinkles in a fun, bite-sized package perfect for dessert, snacking, or as an appetizer.
Fall is the perfect time to showcase your cookie skills with fun, festive, hand-held treats like these mini fall sugar cookies, mini Halloween cupcakes, and pumpkin spice sugar cookies.
These cookies are pillowy soft, heaped with sweet, fall-themed frosting, and perfect for any occasion on a cool, fall day or evening!
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Simple Ingredients: All you need for this recipe are basic baking ingredients.
- Easy to Make: Must mix, bake, and frost. That’s it!
- So Soft: Using sour cream makes cookies that are so pillowy soft and tender.
- Festive: Colored frosting and fall sprinkles give the cookies the illusion of being topped with fallen leaves.
- Customizable: It’s easy to make these cookies for any occasion with one simple tweak.
- Versatile: These are perfect for snacking, appetizers, or dessert.
Key Ingredients
See the recipe card at the bottom of the post for a full list of ingredients and their exact amounts.
- Vegetable Oil: Vegetable oil takes the place of some of the butter, giving the cookies extra moisture for a softer texture.
- Sour Cream: The moisture and acidity of sour cream make the cookies so pillowy and tender.
- Gel Food Coloring: Gel food coloring in colors like yellow, brown, or mixed to create orange hues gives the frosting its fall color. Make sure to use gel and not liquid food coloring.
Variations
- Sour Cream: You can substitute full-fat Greek yogurt for sour cream for the same flavor and texture.
- Holidays: Change up the food coloring and sprinkles to make holiday variations, like pumpkin sugar cookies for the fall, festive colors for major holidays, and even patriotic sugar cookies.
- Full Size: Use a 2-inch cookie scoop to make full-sized cookies.
How to Make Mini Fall Sugar Cookies
- Whisk the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set them aside.
- Beat the butter, oil, and sour cream in a large bowl. Then, add the sugar and vanilla.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined.
- Use a 1-inch cookie scoop to place dough balls onto a prepared baking sheet. Then, press them down slightly with the bottom of a glass.
- Bake until the edges are set. Then, cool on the baking sheet for five minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Mix the frosting ingredients, and add the food coloring. Then, frost the cooled cookies and top with sprinkles.
Tips
- Room Temperature Ingredients: Your cold ingredients should be brought to room temperature for better emulsification with less mixing.
- Don’t Overmix: Mix your dough ingredients until just combined. Overmixing makes dense, tough cookies.
- Fresh Leaveners: Your baking powder should be fresh. Expired leaveners won’t work, leaving you with flat cookies.
- Don’t Overbake: Your cookies will look a bit raw, and that’s okay. The heat from the baking sheets finishes them to perfection as they cool.
- Gel Food Coloring: Never add liquid food coloring to frosting. That bit of extra liquid makes the frosting too thin.
- Fully Cool Before Frosting: Fully cool your cookies before frosting them, or the heat will thin the frosting.
Mini Fall Sugar Cookies FAQs
The perfectly-sized mini cookie should be between 1 and 2 inches in diameter. At that size, they’re easy to hold and eat.
There are two things that make sugar cookies extra special. One, your butter should be just at room temperature or even a touch cool. Never warm.
Second, you should cream your butter, fat, and sugar thoroughly. This creates pockets of air that give the cookies their rise and soft, pillowy texture.
All-purpose flour works best for sugar cookies. It provides an excellent balance of structure and tenderness, perfect for sugar cookies.
More Delicious Cookies to Enjoy
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Mini Fall Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Sugar Cookie Dough
- 4 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ cup butter softened
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1½ cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
Buttercream Frosting
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ½ cup butter
- 3 tablespoon milk
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- Fall colors of gel food coloring, as desired.
- Festive fall sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° and lightly grease a baking sheet(s).
Sugar Cookie Dough
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat butter, oil, and sour cream together on medium speed.
- Add sugar and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.
- Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix on low speed just until dough forms a ball.
- Using a 1-inch cookie scoop, place dough balls on the prepared baking sheets.
- Spray the bottom of a glass with non-stick cooking spray and gently press each cookie to flatten them a bit.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes.
- Remove cookies from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes and then remove and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
Buttercream Frosting
- In a medium mixing bowl, cream butter, milk and vanilla together. Gradually add powdered sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.
- Add desired color of food coloring until desired consistency is obtained.
- Frost cookies once they have completely cooled, and sprinkle with candy sprinkles.
Notes
- Room Temperature Ingredients: Your cold ingredients should be brought to room temperature for better emulsification with less mixing.
- Don’t Overmix: Mix your dough ingredients until just combined. Overmixing makes dense, tough cookies.
- Fresh Leaveners: Your baking powder should be fresh. Expired leaveners won’t work, leaving you with flat cookies.
- Don’t Overbake: Your cookies will look a bit raw, and that’s okay. The heat from the baking sheets finishes them to perfection as they cool.
These are so adorable! We loved the texture of these cookies, and I really enjoyed how easy it was to decorate them.
I love the flavor and the texture so much! The best part of these is that I can change the fosting to match any holiday.
These are so good! I’m just going to make them all year without the frosting just to have them on hand.
These cookies are the sweetest! Simple sugar cookies that are perfect for baking with the kids or gifting. Love that beautiful fall theme!
These mini fall sugar cookies are soft, sweet, and bite-sized. Topped with colorful frosting, they’re perfect for autumn.
The most amazing cookies ever! Easy to make and turn out to be extremely delicious.
These are so cute! I made them for a party we went to and they were a huge hit! Definitely will make again for holiday cookie boxes!
I made a batch with my kids and they were so fun to decorate. The cookies baked up soft and held their shape perfectly.
This recipe for mini fall sugar cookies turned out amazing! They were easy to prepare and the family loved them! I can’t wait to make them again!!