Easy To Make Star Wars Cookies: Painted Sugar Cookies 2   Recently updated !

Crafting and Baking all rolled into one with these easy to make Star Wars cookies.

We love Star Wars.  In fact, every year we find some way to celebrate May the Fourth.  

If you’re already a fan of Star Wars you probably know, that May 4th each year is Star Wars Day.   If you didn’t know, you might be asking yourself why May 4th? Well because “May the fourth (Force) be with you,” of course.

Anyway, for my house, it’s kind of a big deal.  Last year for Star Wars day we made these cute Star Wars Perler Bead coasters.  This year, we decided to make easy Star Wars cookies.

I’ll be honest, I’m no baker.  I’m more of a crafty kind of gal.  That’s why we made our Star Wars cookies with “paint” instead of frosting.  So it’s kind of baking and crafting all rolled into one. That’s a win/win for for me.  

The technique for painting cookies is so easy that even a toddler can help and get great results.  We’ve done it for years when we make Christmas cookies.

So let’s get started with these easy to make Star Wars cookies. May the Force be with you.

Supplies Needed for Star Wars cookies

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• Sugar cookie dough
• 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
• Flour
• Food coloring
• Star Wars cookie cutters 
• Rolling pin
• Jumbo black sugar pearls (optional for eyes) – link is to an Amazon affiliate link
• Craft Paint Brushes in assorted sizes
• Muffin tin
• Cookie sheet

So let’s talk about supplies for a minute before we begin.

First, let’s talk about the cookie dough.  Sugar cookie dough is serious business. I know that everyone has their favorite recipe.  I’m sure you’ve gotten yours from a family member who makes the best sugar cookies EVER!

Use that recipe.  

I already told you that I’m no baker, and although I have a handed down recipe of my own…I rarely use it.  Mostly because it takes forever, and I really don’t have time for spending the hours needed to make the best cookies ever!

No joke, we used a package of sugar cookie mix.  The cookies taste great, and most of the fun is in painting them anyway.   

Aside from the cookie dough, if you want to make Star Wars cookies you really do need some Star Wars cookie cutters.  The set in the link I shared is what we have. It comes with 6 cookie cutters of Luke, Leia, Yoda, R2D2, C3PO, and Chewbacca.  We also have a couple of other sets, so you’ll see other characters in my photos. BUT really you only need the basic set.

Making Star Wars cookies

Start by rolling out your cookie dough like you would when making any other cookie cutter cookies.  You put flour on the surface and then roll. The dough needs to be about a ¼ inch thick. If the dough starts to get sticky, use flour on the rolling pin to keep it from sticking.

Next it’s time to cut out the cookies.  If you’ve never used this type of cookie cutter (affiliate link) before, you’ll need to know that this is a two sided cookie cutter.

First, cut out the shape of your cookie using the side of the cookie cutter that is indented.  Then move that shape onto a cookie sheet.

Once you’ve moved the cookie to the cookie sheet, you’ll want to use the other side of the cookie cutter to make the indents on the cookie itself.  That’s what give the cookies their faces. So cute, right?

Repeat this process to cut out all your cookies until your cookie trays are full.  

Now we’re ready to paint the sugar cookies

Painting the Star Wars cookies

The paint you’ll use in creating your Star Wars cookies is actually just sweetened condensed milk and food coloring.  When baked, the sweetened condensed milk forms a sort of glaze on your cookies. I actually like the taste better than frosting because it’s not as sweet.  

Spoiler Alert:  As if making sugar cookies isn’t messy enough, painting sugar cookies is SUPER messy.  You’ve been warned. Check out our mess below.

To make your paint you’ll want to put about a tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk into one of the spaces in the muffin tin.  Then add a few drops of food coloring to the milk and mix thoroughly. Voila! It’s cookie paint.

The colors in the Star Wars universe aren’t exactly the same colors in your normal 4 pack of food coloring.  So, we did have to play around the the coloring until we got the colors we wanted.  Brown was the hardest. It’s red and green, but we really struggled getting Chewbacca’s auburn fur color just right.

Now that you have your paint, all that’s left to do it paint your cookies.  You’ll use regular craft paint brushes to paint them. We had various sizes of brushes available to choose from so the kids could make different size paint strokes.

Using sweetened condensed milk for cookie paint makes a pretty thick “paint”  you really have to load it on the brush to do it successfully.

Paige took a more artistic approach and decided to use multiple colors on each cookie.  They turned out amazing!

She also wanted to add the jumbo black pearls for the Star Wars characters eyes.  

The way she did it is a bit more difficult, so if you’re working with smaller kids, you may want to use Wonder Boy’s approach, which was one color per cookie.

Whichever method you choose. Your cookies will turn out looking great because you can still see the indents made by the cookie cutters after they are baked.

Once you’ve decorated all your Star Wars cookies all that’s left to do is bake them.  No special instructions there, just bake them to your recipes’ instructions.

Then they are ready to eat!  If Star Wars isn’t your thing, you really can use the cookie painting technique for any kind of sugar cookies.  It’s an easy way to decorate your cookies, and it’s really fun. Plus, with smaller kids you can teach them about color mixing and they get to see the instant results.