There are bunnies, chicks, and eggs galore in our collection of Easter cookies—and you'll find pastel colors and easy cookies that kids can help make or decorate here, too. As the holiday coincides with the arrival of spring, some of our Easter cookie recipes play on classic spring flavors like lemon and carrot cake. Add them to your Easter baskets or serve them as a sweet ending to your holiday brunch or dinner.
French Meringue Cookies
Inspired by the gorgeous displays of meringues in the patisserie windows of Paris in the spring, Martha developed the recipe for these elegant crisp-chewy treats. They're naturally gluten-free and colored in soft shades that mirror their flavors: chocolate, raspberry, and orange.
Martha's Easter Sugar Cookies
For Easter, Martha makes cookies shaped like eggs, chicks, and bunnies, all frosted with royal icing using her favorite streamlined decorating technique.
Watercolor Easter Bunny Cookies
As fun to make as they are delicious, these rabbit and carrot-shaped sugar cookies are frosted with royal icing and painted with a bright mixture of luster dust and water. Make it a family activity—like dyeing Easter eggs—by letting your kids help decorate.
Lemon Bars with Brown-Butter Shortbread Crust
Lemon bars are a classic that delights year round, but we think they're especially well suited to Easter. This sublime version contrasts the tart yet creamy lemon topping with a brown-butter shortbread crust.
Easter Chick Cookies
Lemon shortbread cookies become adorable chicks and eggs with the help of sanding sugar, sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, and candy.
Embellished Wreath Cookies
Take classic sugar cookies to special-occasion status with a simple glaze and stunning combination of candied flowers, crystallized ginger, and chopped pistachios.
Flower Sugar Cookie
Use pink food coloring and kitchen shears to give sugar cookies blush-hued "petals" and finish with round candies for the centers.
Bunny Cookies
Impress guests of all ages with these bite-size rabbit-shaped cookies. No special tools needed—just kitchen shears and a toothpick for a quick snip and poke.
Carrot-Cake Thumbprint Cookies
The flavors of classic carrot cake are combined into a convenient handheld package. Use cream cheese or go with goat cheese for a touch of sophistication in the thumbprint center.
Pastel Butter Cookies
These gorgeously-hued treats are almond shortbread cookies finished with tinted powdered sugar. It's made by blending equal parts fruit with confectioners sugar in a food processor.
Lemon Madeleines
These tangy delights have a citrus aroma that will pleasantly fill your kitchen. Serve them as a light dessert with fresh fruit or on their own at teatime.
Painted Egg Cookies
Egg-shaped sugar cookies get a vibrant coat of color when they're brushed with a highly pigmented yolk wash.
Little Lamb Cookies
Mary had a little lamb whose icing was as white as snow (or pink, if you prefer) and glittery, too, thanks to a sprinkling of sanding sugar.
Sugar Cookie Bunnies
Bring the Easter Bunny to the table with these rabbit-shaped sweets. Everyone will love the classic cookie, and you'll love the simple recipe.
Lemon-Ginger Cookies with Mint
Crystallized ginger gives a sweet heat to these lemon sugar cookies while fresh mint imparts a cool zing.
Spring Flower Sugar Cookies
Spring plants don't grow any sweeter than these flower-and-mushroom-shaped sugar cookies that are baked atop wooden skewers. Plant them in an Easter basket or in a tabletop bed of wheatgrass.
Lemon Icebox Cookies
Tart lemon cookies make an easy and satisfying treat, and they're easy to fit into your Easter preparations. You can make the dough and store it in the freezer up to a month ahead of time.
Bird's Nest Cookies
Rich ganache is piped over thin chocolate cookies and sprinkled with coconut to mimic the appearance of bird's nests. Top with two or three miniature chocolate eggs to complete the illusion.