17 Truly Exceptional Easter Cookie Recipes

We love the golden color brown sugar gives these simple sugar cookies. Make them really sparkle with royal icing and pink, purple, and green sanding sugar.

Lemon shortbread cookies become adorable chicks and eggs with the help of sanding sugar, sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, and candy.

Use pink food coloring and kitchen shears to give sugar cookies blush-hued "petals" and finish with round candies for the centers.

Impress guests of all ages with these bite-size rabbit-shaped cookies. No special tools needed -- just kitchen shears and a tooth pick for a quick snip and poke.

This recipe combines the flavors of classic carrot cake into a convenient handheld package. Goat cheese adds a touch of sophistication to the cream cheese center.

Egg-shaped sugar cookies get a vibrant coat of color thanks to a highly pigmented yolk wash. 

Mary had a little lamb whose icing was as white as snow (or pink, if you prefer) thanks to a glittery sprinkling of sanding sugar.

Royal icing and poppy seeds are all you need to transform lemony butter cookies into a bouquet of poppies.

Bring the Easter Bunny to the table with these rabbit-shaped sweets.

Crystallized ginger gives a sweet heat to these lemon sugar cookies, while the fresh mint imparts a cool zing.

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.