Unicorn Cookies
How to make these adorable Unicorn Cookies from scratch. They’ll be a such a hit at any little girl’s or boy’s party. We’ve even got a unicorn cookie video tutorial to guide you through the process. Have fun!

I made these adorable Unicorn Cookies for my Niece’s First Birthday. As you can guess, I’m sure, she had a Unicorn Birthday Party, complete with tiered Unicorn Cake, sparkles and pastel pinks, blues and purples. As a thank you gift for the party attendees I made each person a decorated unicorn cookie tied with pastel ribbons.
We began the process of making these unicorn cookies two days before the big event to give ourselves plenty of time. It’s a good idea to assemble all of your equipment and ingredients before you start, and recruit a kitchen helper.
Our unicorn cookie cutter came from an Australian Etsy store called Sweet Savannah Cookies. They were the perfect size for party favors.
No unicorn cookie is complete without a shiny gold horn either. I found this completely edible gold metallic paint at an Australian store called Edible Art Paint. You can paint it directly onto fondant, chocolate and buttercream and it’s free of major allergens. It really made the unicorn cookies sparkle and shine. I used the shade Glamorous Gold for my unicorns.
I hope you enjoy making these decorated unicorn cookies.
HOW TO MAKE UNICORN COOKIES
Click to watch how to make Unicorn Cookies
How to Make Unicorn Cookies
Makes: at least 60 cookies Difficulty: Medium
EQUIPMENT:
Unicorn Cookie Cutter (mine was 10cm x 12cm, or about 4 x 4 inches)
Large Baking Trays
Large Rolling Pin
Electric Beaters or Stand Mixer
Large Mixing Bowl
3 Wilton Piping Tips #16 (Open Star)
3 piping bags
Non-stick fondant rolling pin
Pastry Brush
Skewer
Small quality paintbrush
BAKING TIMELINE:
Here’s a breakdown of the timings to help you prepare
Preparing the dough: 20 minutes
Dough Resting Time: 60 minutes in the fridge
Rollin Dough and cutting shapes: 20 minutes at least
Cooking baking: 15 minutes per batch of cookies
Cooling Time: 30 minutes at least
Full Decoration: allow at least 5 hours including setting time
INGREDIENTS:
Sugar Cookies
600g Unsalted Butter, softened to room temperature
600g Caster Sugar
3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
3 Eggs, lightly beaten
1.2kg Plain Flour
Sugar Syrup
200g Apricot Jam
100ml Boiling Water
Royal Icing
570g Icing Sugar
3 Egg Whites
2 teaspoons Almond Extract (or Lemon Juice)
Decorations
1.5kg Ready To Roll white fondant
Rose Pink Liquid Food Colouring
Blue Liquid Food Colouring
Red Liquid Food Colouring
Black Confectioner’s Edible Ink Pen
Metallic Gold Edible Paint (I used Glamorous Gold by Sweet Sticks)
60 Royal Icing Flowers
METHOD:
Bake the Sugar Cookies
Add the softened butter, caster sugar, and vanilla extract to a large bowl. Beat together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and continue to beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally.
Add the flour in a few batches. Use your stand mixer and paddle attachment to beat in the flour, or use a wooden spoon to hand mix the flour in to make a dough. Your hand-held beaters won’t cope with the thickness of the batter.
Empty the dough onto a clean bench. Bring the dough together into a ball. Don’t worry if it’s sticky at this stage. Split the dough into several smaller balls, wrap each in plastic film, flatten them into discs, and let them chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 fan-forced; 350F). Line large baking trays with baking paper. Remove one or two discs of dough from the fridge and knead each disc back into a ball. Lightly flour the bench and rolling pin. Roll the dough about 5mm thick. Use the cookie cutter to cut shapes from the dough and place the shapes on the tray. Leave about 1cm between each cookie,
Knead the scraps of dough back together and keep rolling and cutting the dough until there’s no room on the baking tray(s). Place the baking trays on the middle rack of the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Total baking time depends on size and shape of your cookies. They’re done when they become golden brown on the edges and underneath.
Remove cookies from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes on the trays before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. They’re soft and fragile while warm but will crisp up as they cool.
Continue to bake batches of cookies until you have the desired number you need. Allow them to cool completely before decorating.
Make the sugar syrup
While the cookies are cooling you can make the sugar syrup “glue” to stick the fondant to the cookies: mix the apricot jam with boiling water. Stir until there’re no lumps. Set aside to cool.
Fondant Decoration
Work in a small batch of cookies at a time, or the fondant will dry out.
Sprinkle some cornflour on a clean dry bench and onto your rolling pin. Knead a small amount of fondant until it’s pliable, then roll it out to about 3mm thick.
Cut shapes out of the fondant with the cookie cutter. Use a pastry brush to apply sugar syrup to the top of a few of the cooled cookies. Line up the fondant piece with the cookie and press it on. Use the rolling pin to gently roll the fondant flat onto the cookie and to smooth the surface. While the fondant is still soft use the point of the skewer to make two nostrils, and press the skewer diagonally across the horn to make the swirl effect.
Repeat until all the cookies are covered in fondant. Allow the fondant to air dry.
Eyes, Gold Horn and Nose Decorations
When the fondant has air-dried draw a closed eye with five eyelashes onto each cookie with a food grade confectioner’s pen.
Paint gold food grade edible paint onto the unicorn horn and its nose.
Royal Icing Unicorn Hair
When the gold paint is almost dry, prepare the royal icing. Add the sifted icing sugar, egg whites and almond extract (or lemon juice) to the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat together until the icing is smooth and thick.
Split the icing between three bowls. Use the food colouring to tint the icing the colours of your choice (I used pastel pink, light blue, and pastel purple).
Fit each piping bag with a tip and scrape one icing colour into each bag. Squeeze the icing to the bottom of each bag, twist the bag tightly, and secure with an elastic bag.
Pipe strands of unicorn hair down the sides of the cookie and across its forehead. Press a royal icing flower into the mane to finish.
Allow the iced cookies to completely air dry before packaging them.
BAKING TIPS:
- You can make the cookies ahead of time. Undecorated cookies can keep for up to 1 month in an airtight container if you wrap them in plastic film.
- Keep your RTR fondant in an airtight container when not in use. It can dry up quickly.
- If your fondant is sticky, use cornflour to stop it sticking to the bench and rolling pin.
- Store any royal icing in an airtight container to stop it drying out.
- Things always take longer than you think, so allow yourself plenty of time to bake and decorate.
Servings | Prep Time | Cook Time | Passive Time |
60Cookies | 6hrs | 15mins | 1.5hrs |
Servings | Prep Time |
60Cookies | 6hrs |
Cook Time | Passive Time |
15mins | 1.5hrs |
- Sugar Cookies
- 600 g Unsalted Butter softened to room temperature
- 600 g Caster Sugar
- 3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 3 Eggs lightly beaten
- 1.2 kg Plain Flour
- Sugar Syrup
- 200 g Apricot Jam
- 100 ml Boiling Water
- Royal Icing
- 570 g Icing Sugar
- 3 Egg Whites
- 2 teaspoons Almond Extract (or lemon juice)
- Decorations
- 1.5 kg Ready-to-roll White Fondant
- Rose Pink liquid food colouring
- Blue liquid food colouring
- Red liquid food colouring
- Black confectioner's edible ink pen
- Metallic Gold Edible Paint
- 60 Royal icing flowers
Ingredients
Servings: Cookies
Units:
|
- Add the softened butter, caster sugar, and vanilla extract to a large bowl. Beat together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and continue to beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl occasionally
- Add the flour in a few batches. Use your stand mixer and paddle attachment to beat in the flour, or use a wooden spoon to hand mix the flour in to make a dough. Your hand-held beaters won’t cope with the thickness of the batter.
- Empty the dough onto a clean bench. Bring the dough together into a ball. Don’t worry if it’s sticky at this stage. Split the dough into several smaller balls, wrap each in plastic film, flatten them into discs, and let them chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 fan-forced; 350F). Line large baking trays with baking paper. Remove one or two discs of dough from the fridge and knead each disc back into a ball. Lightly flour the bench and rolling pin. Roll the dough about 5mm thick. Use the cookie cutter to cut shapes from the dough and place the shapes on the tray. Leave about 1cm between each cookie.
- Knead the scraps of dough back together and keep rolling and cutting the dough until there’s no room on the baking tray(s). Place the baking trays on the middle rack of the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Total baking time depends on size and shape of your cookies. They’re done when they become golden brown on the edges and underneath.
- Remove cookies from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes on the trays before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. They’re soft and fragile while warm but will crisp up as they cool.
- Continue to bake batches of cookies until you have the desired number you need. Allow them to cool completely before decorating
- While the cookies are cooling you can make the sugar syrup “glue” to stick the fondant to the cookies: mix the apricot jam with boiling water. Stir until there’re no lumps. Set aside to cool.
- Work in a small batch of cookies at a time, or the fondant will dry out.
- Sprinkle some cornflour on a clean dry bench and onto your rolling pin. Knead a small amount of fondant until it’s pliable, then roll it out to about 3mm thick.
- Cut shapes out of the fondant with the cookie cutter. Use a pastry brush to apply sugar syrup to the top of a few of the cooled cookies. Line up the fondant piece with the cookie and press it on. Use the rolling pin to gently roll the fondant flat onto the cookie and to smooth the surface.
- While the fondant is still soft use the point of the skewer to make two nostrils, and press the skewer diagonally across the horn to make the swirl effect.
- Repeat until all the cookies are covered in fondant. Allow the fondant to air dry.
- When the fondant has air-dried draw a closed eye with five eyelashes onto each cookie with a food grade confectioner’s pen.
- Paint gold food grade edible paint onto the unicorn horn and its nose.
- When the gold paint is almost dry, prepare the royal icing. Add the sifted icing sugar, egg whites and almond extract (or lemon juice) to the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat together until the icing is smooth and thick.
- Split the icing between three bowls. Use the food colouring to tint the icing the colours of your choice (I used pastel pink, light blue, and pastel purple).
- Fit each piping bag with a tip and scrape one icing colour into each bag. Squeeze the icing to the bottom of each bag, twist the bag tightly, and secure with an elastic bag.
- Pipe strands of unicorn hair down the sides of the cookie and across its forehead. Press a royal icing flower into the mane to finish.
- Allow the iced cookies to completely air dry before packaging them.
- You can make the cookies ahead of time. Undecorated cookies can keep for up to 1 month in an airtight container if you wrap them in plastic film.
- Keep your RTR fondant in an airtight container when not in use. It can dry up quickly.
- If your fondant is sticky, use cornflour to stop it sticking to the bench and rolling pin.
- Store any royal icing in an airtight container to stop it drying out.
- These take longer than you think, so allow yourself plenty of time to bake and decorate.
You might like our other cookie recipes and biscuit recipes like decorated Butterfly Sugar Cookies, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Cornflake Cookies with Choc Chips and Sultanas.
Like these Unicorn Cookies? Spread the word!

I absolutely love these cookies, they look so much fun to make a decorate. I’ll definitely be giving this a go soon!
So cute!! So much work. You really have to be passionate about cookies to make something like this. Great job!
These cookies are so pretty Emma, I bet they’re delicious too! I was looking for a good recipe for butter cookies and will try one but I’ll halve the ingredients, you made a huge batch lol :)
These are so sweet! I don’t even have kids but would make them just for myself!
I’m starting to see unicorns pop up everywhere. These look cute and fun to decorate.