Celebrate Easter with these easy-to-make Easter Sugar Cookie Bars topped with a creamy coconut frosting! Enjoy a sweet and festive treat that is sure to satisfy your sweet tooth.
Are you looking for fun Easter dessert recipes? Because I have a great one to share with you today! These Easter Sugar Cookie Bars with creamy coconut buttercream are decorated with colorful jelly beans and fluffy marshmallow peeps!
Easter cookies, in bar form, are perfect for the occasion, easy to bake, and super fun to make and eat!
I love making bar cookies for holidays because they are so easy to make and they travel well for parties, but if you’d prefer to make a traditional easter cookie, try my recipes for Cadbury Mini Egg Cookies with chocolate chips and Easter Bunny Cookies – they’re cut-out cookies that look like bunny peeps!
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Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Peeps! Easter peeps are one of those candies that show up everywhere around Easter, and I love adding them to as many cookies and desserts as I can before the holiday has passed. Check out my Peeps Rice Krispie Treats and Easter Peep Cake too.
- Fun for Kids: You can let your family decorate their own easter cookie bars and make baking this recipe a fun afternoon activity.
- Delicious Coconut Flavor: What makes these cookie bars special is the amazing coconut-infused buttercream frosting! It adds an extra sweet and rich flavor note that everyone will go crazy for.
Key Ingredients
Complete list of ingredients with quantities and instructions is located in the recipe card below
- Cookie Bar Dough: This easy sugar cookie bar recipe is soft and chewy with pastel rainbow sprinkles inside! I like to use confetti sprinkles, which are small, flat, circular ones. They are least likely to bleed colors into the dough.
- Coconut Frosting: Make a simple buttercream frosting spectacular with the addition of cream of coconut and coconut extract! Cream of coconut can often be found near the drink mixers in the grocery store since this sweetened syrup is a key ingredient for making pina coladas. Coco Lopez and Coco Real are two popular brands.
- Fun Easter Decorations: I love adding Easter peeps to desserts! Each cookie bar gets one, plus some jelly beans and tinted green coconut “grass”.
How To Make Easter Cookie Bars
- Mix Dry Ingredients: Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a large bowl and whisk until combined. Set aside until needed.
- Mix Wet Ingredients: Start by creaming the softened butter with the sugar until it’s light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Finally, add the vanilla and almond extracts.
- Combine: Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and mix until there are no longer any dry spots in the dough. Avoid overmixing, and scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add Sprinkles: This is optional, but colored confetti sprinkles make sugar cookie bars extra fun! Stir them into the dough until just combined.
- Bake and Cool: Add the cookie dough to the prepared pan and press into an even layer using your hands. Then bake in the preheated oven for 20-24 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out mostly clean. Let the bars cool completely on a wire rack before decorating them.
- Make the Coconut Frosting: Whip the butter in the body of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until smooth. Add the powdered sugar, a little at a time and mix until combined. Add the cream of coconut, vanilla, coconut extract, and salt, and mix again until combined, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Whip on medium-high speed for 3 minutes to get the frosting light and fluffy.
- Frost the Bars: When the cookie bars are completely cool, remove them from the pan. Spread the coconut frosting over them in an even layer.
- To Make the Coconut Grass: Add the coconut flakes and a few drops of green food coloring to a gallon-sized zip-top bag. Close the bag and toss around until the coconut is green, adding more food coloring if needed.
- Sprinkle the Coconut over the frosting: Slice the bars into 12 squares before decorating with the coconut. It’s best to do this before the frosting has had a chance to dry on top so that the flakes will stick.
- Decorate! Add an Easter peep to each square, and decorate with jelly beans before serving.
Top Tips
- I’m showing you how to make the dough for cookie bars in a stand mixer, but you can just as easily make this recipe with an electric hand mixer and a large mixing bowl.
- I like to cut the bars into servings before adding the coconut. I find that it’s less messy this way.
- Serve Immediately so that the peeps are fresh and soft. If you want to make the bars ahead of time, wait to add the decorations until just before serving.
- Use your favorite Easter candy: Try chocolate eggs or fun Easter-shaped sprinkles on top!
How to Store Decorated Cookie Bars
Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days. I suggest waiting to add the peeps and jelly beans until just before serving, so that they don’t dry out.
Cookie bars without frosting or toppings can be frozen for up to 3 months. Simply thaw and decorate when you’re ready!
Other Easter Desserts You Should Try
- Easter Egg Sugar Cookies
- Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies
- Heaven On Earth Cake
- Bunny Pretzels
- Easter Basket Cookie Cups
FAQs
If you can’t find cream of coconut, you can also use heavy cream or whole milk to make the frosting. It won’t have quite the same amount of delicious coconut flavor, but it will still be wonderful!
Of course! If you’re avoiding coconut for any reason, you can skip the coconut frosting, and instead frost the cookie bars with plain buttercream frosting, like the one on our frosted sugar cookie bars. Feel free to tint the frosting green instead of adding green coconut flakes.
Easter Sugar Cookie Bars are fun to make and so delicious with creamy coconut frosting and marshmallow peeps on top! Enjoy this recipe with your family this year, and be sure to save it for next year too.
Easter Sugar Cookie Bars
Equipment
- Stand mixer or hand mixer
Ingredients
For the Cookie Base:
- 3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter softened
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract optional
- ¼ cup confetti sprinkles
For the Coconut Frosting:
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter softened
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup cream of coconut
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon coconut extract
- pinch salt
For Assembly:
- 1 ½ cups sweetened coconut flakes
- green food coloring
- 12 Easter peeps
- Jelly beans
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C. Line a 9×13-inch baking dish with parchment paper and spray with baking spray, set aside.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to a large bowl and whisk until combined, set aside.
- In the body of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or with a hand mixer and a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time until incorporated. Add in the vanilla and almond extracts, mix until combined.
- Add the flour mixture a little at a time to the wet ingredients and mix in until just combined, with no dry patches, but do not overmix. Scrape down the sides as needed.
- Add the sprinkles (optional) and stir until just incorporated.
- Press the cookie dough into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Bake for 20-24 minutes until lightly golden brown along the edges and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean. Let cool completely on a wire rack.
- While the cookie bars cool, make the coconut frosting. Place the butter in the body of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer and whip the butter until smooth. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time and mix until combined. Add in the cream of coconut, vanilla, coconut extract, and salt, and stir in until combined. Scrape the sides as needed. Whip on medium-high speed for 3 minutes until fluffy.
- Take the cookie bars out of the baking dish, you can use the parchment paper to help. Evenly spread the frosting on top of the bars.
- In a gallon-sized zip-topped bag, add the coconut flakes and a couple of drops of green food coloring. Close the bag and toss around until the coconut is dyed green, add more food coloring if needed to reach your desired shade.
- It is easier to serve if you cut the bars first and then sprinkle the dyed coconut on top.
- Add an Easter peep to each slice and jelly beans, and serve immediately.
Notes
- To make the bars easy to remove from the pan, leave extra parchment paper on each side so that you can use it as handles to lift the bars out.
- Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days. I suggest waiting to add the peeps and jelly beans until just before serving, so that they don’t dry out.
- Cookie bars without frosting or toppings can be frozen for up to 3 months.
- Have fun with toppings! Add your favorite easter candies, like chocolate eggs or extra sprinkles.
- These bars are easier to serve if you cut them into squares before adding the coconut grass and other toppings.
Nutrition
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
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