Watermelon Slice Cookies
These Watermelon Slice Cookies are made with soft, buttery sugar cookie dough and decorated with bright, colorful royal icing, they look just like mini watermelon slices—and taste just as sweet. They’re a fun baking activity to do with the kids and perfect for parties, picnics, or poolside snacks.
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Ingredients
For the Cookies
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
For the Royal Icing
- ¾ cup warm water
- ⅓ cup meringue powder
- 1 ½ tbsp Karo syrup
- Two 16-oz bags of powdered sugar
- 1 small box of watermelon Jello
- Food coloring gel: hot pink, lime green, dark green, black
Instructions
- In your stand mixer, blend the butter, sugar, and egg with the whisk attachment until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla and mix again.
- In a separate bowl, mix the flour and salt, then slowly add that into the wet mixture until the dough is nice and smooth.
- Roll out half of the dough on a floured piece of parchment paper until it’s about ½ inch thick. Use a 3-inch round cookie cutter to make circles, then cut each circle in half to create little watermelon slice shapes.
- Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake at 350°F for 10–12 minutes, or until the edges just start turning golden. Let them cool completely on a wire rack before decorating.
- In your mixer, whisk together the warm water, meringue powder, and Karo syrup until smooth. Slowly add the powdered sugar (a couple cups at a time), mixing on low speed until everything’s blended and creamy.
- Now split your icing into four bowls. One gets 2 tsp of watermelon Jello powder + a couple drops of hot pink food coloring. The others get lime green, dark green, and black food coloring—one color per bowl.
- Decorate the Cookies. On the rounded edge, pipe a thick line of lime green on the outside, then a second line just inside that.
- Outline the pink part of the “watermelon” and fill it in with the hot pink icing.
- Between those two green lines, add a skinny strip of dark green. Add little black dots on the pink part and use a cookie scribe or toothpick to drag them down slightly—they’ll look just like seeds!
- Let the icing set for at least an hour before serving or packaging them up.
Servings: 24 cookies
Calories: 160kcal