These easy football cookies are perfect for a football party, Super Bowl party, or any time you just want a treat that’s football themed! Soft sugar cookies get topped with icing and sprinkles to make the cutest football stadium cookies ever!
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Now that the Super Bowl teams are set for the year – Go Chiefs! – I figured it was time to finally share fun new content for all you football fans out there!
Most of the time Super Bowl is all about the appetizers like buffalo chicken dip, queso fundido, and of course these crispy parmesan garlic wings.
But this year I thought it would be fun to not only share a bunch of new snacks and appetizers but also some football themed treats like these football cookies!
These aren’t your typical football cookies that look like footballs – these are better because they don’t require any fancy football-shaped cookie cutter, just some sugar cookies, frosting, and sprinkles!
If you prefer cookies with a football shape instead, I highly recommend this cut out sugar cookie recipe!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Semi-Homemade – while I’ve given you the ingredients to make these from scratch, you can totally go with just decorating the cookies for the big game and not baking them yourself.
- Easy to decorate – these football sugar cookies are about as easy to decorate as they get. No need for a piping bag to make these decorated cookies, just dip and sprinkle!
- Adorable football cookies – these football stadium cookies are so cute but still themed enough to make the perfect treat for football season!
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- White frosting – you can use any white frosting or white icing you want whether it’s vanilla frosting, cream cheese frosting, or even this sugar cookie icing! You really just need something that’s easy to spread and will hold the sprinkles on.
- Rainbow sprinkles – you want to go for the little rainbow circle sprinkles (called nonpareils), not the longer (jimmies) so they look like little people in the stadium.
- Cookie icing – you can either use a homemade sugar cookie icing and just use some food coloring to color it or use store-bought cookie icing that comes colored. Either one works great, homemade just tastes a little better (but obviously takes more time).
- Butter – I always recommend using unsalted butter for baking, and you’ll want to make sure it’s nice and soft before creaming it with the sugar.
- Sugar cookie ingredients – I’ve included a recipe below to make sugar cookies for the base, but if you want to use a sugar cookie mix instead or sugar cookie dough, you can totally do that as well to save yourself time!
How to make Football Cookies
These game day treats are so easy to make! You just need to make the cookie dough, bake the cookies, then decorate! If you’ve ever made sugar cookies before, you’ll be able to make these no problem!
1 – Make the Football Cookie Dough
Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Then prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper and set it aside for later.
In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients including the all purpose flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk them together until they are combined then, set aside.
In a large bowl of a stand mixer cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. As long as your butter is at room temperature, this should come together quickly. If you don’t have a stand mixer, a hand mixer works great too!
Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until the mixture is a smooth texture.
Add the flour mixture a little at a time and then mix on low speed until the flour is fully combined with the butter mixture. Repeat until all of the flour mixture has been added.
2 – Bake Cookies
Using a spoon or a small cookie scoop, put little balls of dough onto the parchment lined baking sheet, making sure to leave about an inch between cookies.
Press down gently on each ball of cookie dough with either a cup, the bottom of a small bowl, or the palm of your hand so they bake evenly in a round shape.
Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes or until the tops and edges are a light golden brown color. When the cookies are done baking take them off of the pan and put them on a wire rack to cool.
3 – Decorate the Cookies
Once the cookies have cooled completely, it’s time to decorate.
Using the back of a spoon or a knife, add the white frosting to half of each of the cookies then press the cookie down into a bowl of the rainbow sprinkles to coat the frosting in the sprinkles to create your audience.
Frost the other half of the cookie with the green cookie icing to make the field. Let the green icing set for 10 minutes to allow it to harden before moving onto the yellow icing for the field goal.
With the yellow cookie icing make a goal post in the center of the green portion of the cookie. You can either do this with a piping tip, a zipper bag with the top cut off, or you can do it by hand. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just make sure it looks like a field goal shape.
And your football themed cookies are done and the perfect dessert to enjoy while you cheer on your favorite team! Whether you’re hosting football themed birthday parties or game day parties, these will be a huge hit with everyone!
Expert Tips
Make sure the green icing is set before you add the yellow field goal or the two will just muddle together, not looking like the perfect football stadium you want.
Switch up the sprinkles in the stadium with your team colors if you want these to be personalized to your team. Like for me, I’d do a combination of red and yellow sprinkles instead of rainbow for the Chiefs!
Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to a week. If you want to freeze, you can freeze these by putting them in a zipper top freezer-safe storage bag.
Recipe FAQs
How do you decorate a football cookie?
To decorate a circle cookie like a football stadium, cover one half in vanilla frosting then dip the frosted half in rainbow nonpareil sprinkles. Cover the other half with a green colored cookie icing. Once that’s hardened, add on a yellow field goal post with yellow colored cookie icing! You have yourself a perfect football stadium cookie!
Can you freeze football cookies?
These cookies freeze great. If you freeze the sugar cookies before decorating, you can just put them in one large zipper top freezer safe bag. If you’re freezing after they are decorated, I recommend wrapping each individual cookie in plastic wrap before putting in a freezer safe bag. Or you can just put individual cookies in their own freezer safe plastic bags.
More Game Day Recipes
If you’re looking for other eats to go with these treats for a football-themed party, these would complement the cookies well!
- Bacon wrapped smokies – these sweet and salty treats are super easy to make and a huge hit with all football fans!
- Bisquick sausage balls – super easy sausage balls that combine Bisquick, sausage, and cheese in a yummy snack!
- Homemade pretzel bites – whether you like them salty or sweet, these easy pretzel bites hit the spot!
- Bacon bombs – these bacon and cheese bombs are not only tasty, they’re easy to turn into footballs!
- Buffalo chicken egg rolls – if you like buffalo chicken dip, you’ll love these egg rolls filled with it!
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Football Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- white frosting
- rainbow circle sprinkles (nonpareils)
- 7 oz Green cookie icing
- 2 oz yellow cookie icing
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients including the all purpose flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Whisk them together until they are combined then, set aside.2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder
- In a large bowl of a stand mixer cream together the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.1 cup unsalted butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar
- Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until the mixture is a smooth texture.1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Add the flour mixture a little at a time and then mix on low speed until the flour is fully combined with the butter mixture. Repeat until all of the flour mixture has been added.
- Using a spoon or a small cookie scoop, put little balls of dough onto the parchment lined baking sheet, making sure to leave about an inch between cookies. Press down gently on each ball of cookie dough with either a cup, the bottom of a small bowl, or the palm of your hand to flatten them slightly.
- Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes or until the tops and edges are a light golden brown color. Transfer cookies to a wire cooling rack to cool.
- Using the back of a spoon or a knife, add the white frosting to half of each of the cookies then press the cookie down into a bowl of the rainbow sprinkles to coat the frosting in the sprinkles to create your audience.white frosting, rainbow circle sprinkles (nonpareils)
- Frost the other half of the cookie with the green cookie icing to make the field. Let the green icing set for 10 minutes to allow it to harden.7 oz Green cookie icing
- With the yellow cookie icing make a goal post in the center of the green portion of the cookie. Allow the icing to harden then serve.2 oz yellow cookie icing
Tips & Notes:
- White frosting – you can use any white frosting or white icing you want whether it’s vanilla frosting, whipped cream frosting, or cream cheese frosting.
- Rainbow sprinkles – you want to go for the little rainbow circle sprinkles (called nonpareils), not the longer (jimmies).
- Cookie icing – you can either use a homemade sugar cookie icing and just use some food coloring to color it or use store-bought cookie icing that comes colored.
- Sugar cookies – you can either make your own cookies or just buy store-bought sugar cookies to decorate, sugar cookie mix, or sugar cookie dough.
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