Coconut Snowman Cookies–in 3D!

Three different snowman frosting styles

Sure, you could make flat, sugar cookie snowmen, but why not enlist your kids in sculpting some three-dimensional ones? That’s what I did with this coconut snowball recipe. I let my kids roll the dough into 3 sizes of balls figuring we’d make a whole family of snow people.

Once the cookies had cooled slightly, we added a quick powdered sugar glaze and then more coconut. After the glaze had set, we added mini-chocolate chips for eyes and cut up fruit leathers for the “carrot” noses and scarves. Melted white chocolate made for perfect snowman glue.

I would love to claim this idea as my own, but really my kids insisted on doing something fun with the recipe. Seeing as in the last week we’ve had nonstop snow and 2–yes 2!–school snow days, I guess I’m not surprised. Plus the temperature is still so chilly that we can’t play outside. No wonder then that my kids were driven to make snowmen inside!

I wanted to try a few different ways to frost the snowmen–my older kids were patient enough to use the original recipe technique above, but younger kids might not be. 

So here are 3 frosting techniques I used, along with some notes.

Powdered sugar coated snowman

Frosting #1 Powdered Sugar

Good: Simple. You just roll the cookie balls in powdered sugar while they’re still warm.

Bad: This makes sticking on the mini-chocolate chip eyes much tougher.

Frosting #2 Powdered sugar glaze

Powdered sugar glaze snowman

Good: Add 2-4 teaspoons of milk to a cup of powdered sugar and stir. Place the cookie balls onto a wire tray with a cookie pan underneath. Pour the glaze over each ball. This is the LEAST messy technique.

Bad: The white chocolate glue is the most visible with this glaze. (Kids don’t seem to mind though.)

Glaze + coconut snowman

Frosting #3 Glaze + ground coconut

Good: After you’ve glazed the snowman balls–and before the frosting sets–roll each one in coconut that has been pulsed in a food processor so that it’s nearly ground. This frosting turned out the prettiest snowmen and it masked any little errors (like too much white chocolate glue).

Bad: Messy. This is the recipe recommended version and these snowmen were the best of the batch. But you need to have patience to put these together.

*A batch of cookies will make for 5, 3-layered snowmen and 1 snow snake;)

This is just one of many cookie recipes you can find at Our Most Gorgeous Holiday Cookies Ever. I’ve been looking through the site as part of the Motherboard team. Once a week, I’ll be posting about the exciting things not to miss on the their site, and their affiliates. (If I have time this week, I really want to make the chocolate pinwheel cookie recipe. We’ll see:)

Are you making cookies for the holidays? What are some of your favorites?