Autumn Leaf Sugar Cookies with Maple Syrup

Name: Autumn Leaf Maple Cookies
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 7 min
Total time: 90 min
Ingredients: ½ cup softened butter; ½ cup brown sugar; 1 egg (I use large eggs); 3 tbsp pure maple syrup; 1¾ cups AP flour; 1 tsp. baking powder; 1/4 tsp. salt; 1 tsp pure vanilla extract; 1/8 tsp. red gel food coloring; 1/8 tsp. orange gel food coloring

September 15, 2020 By Jere Cassidy 37 Comments

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Everyone loves the colors and flavors of fall and these beautiful Autumn Leaf Sugar Cookies with Maple Syrup are colorful and delicious. Bake a batch of these colorful and easy to make cutout cookies to celebrate the season. Everyone loves them!

“These cookies have the prettiest fall colors”

We have made batches of these colorful sugar cookies flavored with maple syrup for fall parties, and they are always a hit sitting on my Thanksgiving table.

It’s pretty common with my family to pick out your favorite cookies and set them on plates with your name to have after dinner. It’s all about getting the prettiest and most colorful leaf cookie on the platter.

Which colorful cookie is your favorite?

It’s hard to pick a favorite when they are all so pretty.

Ingredients needed

Leaf cookie making tips

These cookies take just seven ingredients and leaf-shaped cookie cutters. Have fun cutting out the leaf shapes and seeing what colors appear.

This dough needs to chill for an hour. The dough is not thick and heavy, so plan for a little chillin time.
Because these cookies are all about color, I have found using just red and orange colors combine to make the prettiest soft hues on the cookies. Of course, you can try other colors like adding yellow or maybe a small amount of green. Experiment with colors!
Just make sure to keep the colors as separated as possible so they don’t combine into one color of dough. Just press the dough scraps together and reroll.
If you don’t have maple syrup you can add extra vanilla extract or almond extract.
Try adding some spice to the dough like cinnamon or nutmeg, even pumpkin pie spice would be delicious.
These cookies bake fast, just 7 minutes.

Let’s make cookies

How to mix and color the dough for the autumn colors

Step 1. Add the softened butter to a mixing bowl and beat until smooth and creamy

Step 2. Add the brown sugar and mix again to combine

Step 3. Add the egg, maple syrup, and vanilla, mix on medium speed to combine, and then scrape the bowl. At this point the batter will look curdled, that’s Ok.

Step 4. Add one cup of the flour, the baking powder, and salt. Mix on medium-low until combined then add the rest of the flour. You may have to finish mixing in the flour with a wooden spoon if the dough is too thick.

Today I am using my hand-mixer because many of my readers don’t have a kitchen-aid mixer and I want to show that you don’t need one to make these cookies. If you have the kitchen-aid by all means use it.

Step 5. Separate the dough into thirds which is about 3/4 cup each. Put two of the doughs in separate bowls and the other dough wrap in plastic wrap.

Step 6. Add about a 1/8 teaspoon of red gel food coloring to one of the bowls and orange gel food coloring to the other bowl. Mix the food coloring into the doughs and then turn out on a piece of plastic wrap and then wrap up the dough and place all three doughs in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

How to shape the dough for cutout cookies

Step 7. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two cookies sheets with parchment or a Silpat

Step 8. Take the three doughs out of the refrigerator. Set out a rolling matt and lightly dust with flour. Cut each dough into thirds and then using one third at a time roll each color into a 10″ rope. Keep the unused dough in the refrigerator until you need it.

Step 9. Place the three colors of ropes together on the floured mat and twist them together to make a twisted rope.

Step 10. Fold the twisted rope in half and press down with your hand to flatten. Lightly dust the rolling pin and roll the dough to about a 1/8″ thick round.

Step 11. Cut out your leaf cookies, try to keep each cut-out as close as you can to the last one so there isn’t a lot of scraps leftover. Please each leaf cut-out on the baking sheet. The stem part of the cut-out is tricky sometimes and tends to break off so watch for that.

How to reroll cookie dough scraps

Step 12. When all the cutouts are made gently gather the flat scraps press them together, leaving them as flat as possible.

Now you can reroll the dough to 1/8″ thick and cut out more cookies, then again just push the leftover dough together, roll again and cut out more cookies. Sometimes all I get is one cookie each time but doing this can mean many extra cookies.

What you don’t want to do is gather all the scraps and roll them into a ball before rerolling which will result in all the colors combining into one, not so pretty color.

Step 13. Repeat cutting out cookies with the remaining dough.

Step 14. Bake the cookies for 7 minutes, when done remove the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Not only are these the best autumn cookies they are the prettiest. Now that the cookies are baked make a cup of your favorite tea or coffee and sit down and enjoy a cookie or two.

One Hot Oven cookie inspirations

Try these Orange and Black Sprinkle Cookies for Halloween, ghosts, and goblins love them.

These Chocolate Shortbread Cookies are filled with crunchy cacao nibs for extra flavor.

Ginger Spice Cookies are a family favorite baked with three types of ginger.

If you like lemon, bake a batch of these Frosted Lemon Cookies.

Baking Supplies

Red food color and 0range food color and a really flavorful maple syrup

You also need fall autumn cookie cutters in the shape of leaves, my cutters are maple and oak leaves

I love flour sack towels and these are colorful and perfect for fall.

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4.87 from 30 votes

Autumn Leaf Maple Cookies

These colorful maple-flavored leaf cutout cookies in beautiful fall colors are fun to make and everyone loves to find their favorite cookie to eat.

Course Cookies, Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword autumn leaf cookies, cut-out cookies, maple cookies

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 7 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings

Calories 75kcal

Author Jere' Cassidy

Equipment

Ingredients

½ cup softened butter
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg I use large eggs
3 tbsp pure maple syrup
1¾ cups AP flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. red gel food coloring
1/8 tsp. orange gel food coloring

Instructions

Mixing the dough

Add the softened butter to a large mixing bowl and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add the brown sugar and mix it in on medium speed until incorporated.
Add the egg, maple syrup, and vanilla and mix on medium to combine. The mixture may look curdled or separated.
Add one cup of flour, the baking powder, and salt and beat on medium speed to combine, then add in the rest of the flour, and beat in until combined. If the dough is too stiff for your mixer finish mixing in the flour with a wooden spoon.
Alternately, use a kitchen-aide mixer to complete the steps above.

Coloring the Dough

Separate the dough into thirds. This should be approximately 3/4 cups each or 6 ounces each.
Wrap one of the doughs in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator, and put the other two doughs in two bowls.
Place the other two pieces of dough in bowls and add the red and orange food coloring to each dough. Stir until the dough changes color. If the dough is not dark enough add small amounts of food coloring to achieve the desired color.
Wrap both of the doughs in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Cutting out the Cookies

Preheat the oven to 375° and prepare baking sheets with parchment or a Silpat
Take the three doughs out of the refrigerator and cut into thirds. Using one third at a time place the doughs on a lightly floured surface for rolling.
Roll each piece of dough into a 10"-12" rope and place all three roped together on the floured surface.
Holding one end of the dough, start rolling the dough toward you so the dough starts twisting. You will end up with one large twisted rope.
Fold the dough in half and then using a lightly floured rolling pin roll out the dough to a 1/8" thick.
Using leaf cookie cutters, start cutting out cookies, try to cut out the shapes close together so you do not have a lot of excess dough. Place the cut-outs on the baking sheet, then using a small paring knife, cut veins into each leaf.
You will have scraps left from cutting out the cookies, place these to the side, and leave as flat as possible. When done cutting out each batch of cookies, take the scraps and start placing them close together, pressing with your fingers to form the dough. Now, lightly reroll the dough and cut out more cookies. You don't want to handle the colored pieces of scraps too much or they will become one color of dough.
Repeat cutting out the cookies. If you find the dough is getting soft, put it back into the refrigerator to chill.
Bake the cookies for 7 minutes. Remove from the oven and place the cookies on a cooling rack

Notes

These cookies do not spread and only take 7 minutes to bake.

On warm days, I have put the baking sheet with the cutout cookies in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to firm them up before baking.

For this batch of cookies, I used four different sizes of cookie cutter and got 28 cookies

Did you make this recipe? Let me know how it went. I always appreciate your comments and don't forget to rate it.

Nutrition

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Make a bowl of this hearty Creamy Apple Oatmeal for breakfast that has just the right amount of spices.

Grab your skillet and make this Farmstand Cornbread that is full of cheese and veggies.

If you are a tea lover try my favorite subscription box so you never run out of tea.

Plum Deluxe Tea offers several of my favorites, plus with each subscription, I always find new flavors I love.

Thank you for stopping by the One Hot Oven blog. Please leave a comment to say Hello or just let me know what you are baking these days, I always love hearing from fellow bakers.

About Jere’

From learning to cook on a farm in Indiana to culinary school in California, my passion for food is never-ending. Turning on my oven to bake something for friends and family is my happy place, and I am glad to be here at One Hot Oven sharing both sweet and savory recipes with all my baking friends.

Have any questions or just want to chat about the recipe? Contact me here, and I’ll be happy to help!