Quick and easy cake mix cookies loaded with sprinkles.
Today’s post is dedicated to all my fellow sprinkle lovers out there. By one confetti cookie, we unite. 🙂
I made you a cake mix cookie. Yes. These cookies began with a box of cake mix. I have a love/hate relationship with cake mix. Love it when I’m making cake batter flavored desserts. Hate it because it is just *not* the same as making something homemade from scratch. Not a fan of cake mix? Make my Soft-Baked Funfetti Cookies (no cake mix!) instead of today’s cookie recipe.
The other day I caved and wanted a puffy, fluffy, crinkly-topped, sprinkle overloaded cookie. I actually want those everyday. But stick with me here. Staring back at me was a box of white cake mix I recently purchased on sale in my Target shopping binge. Cake Batter Blondies were intended to be my cake mix’s destiny but oy. Let’s be a little different here, Sally.
A little Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookie inspiration, a little Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake Mix Cookie inspiration, and my love for all-things-cookies all came together one day. A miraculously soft confetti cake batter cookie is born. Today’s cookie recipe may be the easiest cookie you’ll ever make. For the result you’ll get, you’ll literally ask yourself HOW on earth a cookie this good can start from a box. Well, it does. The dough comes together easily by hand. No mixer required – no extra dishes dirtied. Hallelujah. All you’ll need is a bit of elbow grease to mix up the cake mix, eggs, oil, baking powder, vanilla, and sprinkles.
There is also no dough-chilling required. I chill my dough for nearly every single cookie I bake, and it’s imperative in recipes like my favorite chocolate chip cookies. It allows the flavors to get a little friendly with one another and baking cookies with cold dough allows them to bake up thicker. However, you can bypass all that and stick these cake mix cookies right into the oven! A simple ingredient list and a simple baking process. Winner, winner, cookies for dinner. If you need other no-chill cookie recipes, shortbread and snickerdoodles are both great options.
The dough is quite dense and thick; you’ll really need to work it to get rid of all the lumps of dry cake mix. You could try sifting the baking powder and cake mix together, but there’s really no need to take that extra step because you can get all the clumps out by mixing. Why give yourself more work?
If you’d like to “heathify” today’s cookies, you could easily sub the oil for greek yogurt or light sour cream. Before I had a blog, I mixed chocolate cake mix with 1/3 cup vanilla greek yogurt (and the rest of the ingredients below) and had one fudgy “light” cookie. Deeee-lish.
Texture wise, these cookies are soft and light. While they come from cake mix, they are not cakey in the slightest. They are soft in the center, but very chewy around the edges. Moist, melting in your mouth—no dry crumbs in sight. They retain a soft-baked texture that I admire so much in cookies, like these white chocolate chip cranberry cookies.
I adore how thick and puffy they turned out. Little puffy funfetti pillows, if you will. As they bake, the cookies spread to an extent—and then, they just rise. Rise, rise, rise. The baking powder is the culprit behind all that lift. Be sure to roll your balls of dough to be “taller” rather than wide. I talked about the “tall” trick in my oatmeal Raisinet cookies post. If thick cookies are your goal, make sure you don’t miss that!
Quick, easy, painless cookie recipes delivering HIGH results are all I’m looking for this holiday season. Mixed with a little oil, sprinkles, 2 eggs, baking powder and vanilla, white cake mix will be the base of your new favorite cookie. Coming from a cookie snob and very tough cookie critic, that says a lot.
Confetti Cake Batter Cookies
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 9 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 28-30 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Quick and easy cake mix cookies loaded with sprinkles.
Ingredients
- 1 box (18.25 oz) vanilla/white cake mix, such as Duncan Hines
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup vegetable/canola oil or melted coconut oil
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line large baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix together the cake mix and baking powder. Set aside. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, and vanilla by hand. Add the egg mixture to the cake mixture and stir to form a dough. Stir vigorously until all of the pockets of dry cake mix are gone. Gently mix in the sprinkles—you do not want to dye the cookie dough by over stirring the sprinkles.
- Drop rounded 1-inch balls of dough onto prepared baking sheet. Bake for 9 minutes—do not let the cookies get brown. Allow to cool on baking sheet for 3 minutes; they will be very soft at first. As they cool, the tops will settle down so you will not have to press the cookies down yourself. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container, for up to one week.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Cookies freeze well, up to 2-3 months.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Cooling Rack
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
I know it says you can freeze these but doesn’t that make the sprinkles bleed once thawed due to moisture?
If freezing fully baked cookies, the nonpareils sprinkled on top may bleed very slightly once thawed, but feel free to leave them off if you want. The sprinkles in the actual cookies should be fine, or if you are freezing dough balls as well.
Are nonpareils meant to be added after baking? I don’t see that in the instructions.
Hi Heather, you can sprinkle/dip the nonpareils on the tops of the dough balls before baking, or sprinkle some on top right when they come out of the oven (although they may not stick as well that way). Either works!
The cookies tasted delicious but they did not flatten
Hi Ida! When cookies aren’t spreading, it usually means that there’s too much dry ingredient (flour) soaking up all the liquid. When measuring flour, use the spoon & level method. Do not scoop the flour out of the container/bag. Doing so leaves you with excess flour in the cookie dough.
I’m glad I read the comments before trying this recipe! I would have never looked at the size of cake mix box!!
I used Funfetti mix.
Sally, can this be made into cookie balls and frozen? I generally like to do that with your dough so I can bake them as I need them.
Hi Judy, absolutely! Frozen cookie dough balls will last for up to three months.
how do i get these rolled into balls? They are so sticky each time! They end up spreading out too much because I cant get them into balls. But they are still SO yummy!
Hi Tiffany, if you’re finding the dough too sticky to work with, you can pop the dough in the refrigerator for a half hour or so to help it harden just a bit before rolling into balls. Thanks so much for giving these cookies a try!
I made these for a birthday picnic and they were a big hit! My cake mix was only around 15 ounces (not 18.25), so I added an additional 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour to the cake mix. It turned out really well! I used a strawberry cake mix and added an 1/8 teaspoon of lemon extract since I had it on hand. Also rolled the cookies in pink sanding sugar to bump up the pink color. Thanks for this *easy* and fun recipe.
Delicious! Daughter said best cookie she’s ever had. Thank you!
Surprisingly good and pretty, I made 3 dozen with one batch didn’t use as many sprinkles as called for but they are very pretty, the kids are going to love them!
All boxes of cake mix
have been downsized to either 15.25 or 16.5 oz. There are no more 18.25 oz. boxes! As a result, my cookies spread too much and came out too flat. Could you kindly update your recipe to reflect this change? Or tell me how to adjust the current recipe? Thanks!
Ah – yes, I have noticed this! What a lot of people are doing now is to buy extra cake mix and simply use a kitchen scale to measure out the amount of mix you will need. I know it’s frustrating!
Sally, I make this cookies often and people love them! In Canada, our boxed cake mix is only 15 oz. I usually add a bit less of the wet ingredients to make up for it. Is there any amount of flour/dry ingredients that I can add to my 15 oz of cake mix so that I can make as much as the recipe calls for?
Hi Sadie, I had no idea cake mixes were different sizes in Canada! I would actually recommend cutting the recipe in half (or buying two boxes) so that the ratio of ingredients stay the same.
I’ve added 2-3 tbs of flour to adjust to cake mix cookies for the smaller boxes
I was looking for a Christmas cookie recipes for my jobs Christmas party bake off and came across this recipe! These cookies look simple to make and very delicious! Thanks for posting this recipe! Looking forward to making these for the party!
Holy cow, these were amazing. I used Trader Joe’s boxed cake mix and these were seriously superb. Thank you!
Hey Sally,
I was wondering if i could sub in any flavour of cake mix for this recipe without messing up it up?
Thanks 🙂
You sure can! I’ve done it with strawberry and red velvet before.
What do you think of using mini chocolate chips instead of full size chips? will it be overshadowed by the sprinkles? thanks~ making them tomorrow!
That would be fine, Elle. Any size chip is a great idea.
Made these for a cookie exchange, mostly because it had a limited number of ingredients and easy to follow instructions lol, and they turned out amazing! So excited I found this recipe and your blog, thank you for sharing! They were a hit with my family and I’m sure they’ll be a hit in the exchange! 🙂
Hi Sally! Do you think these would be a good texture for sandwich cookies (with marshmallow filling?) I am thinking of Christmas sprinkles….
Of course! That sounds incredible.
Hi Sally,
Do you know if I can make these with a chocolate cake mix?
Hey Maddie! You sure can use a chocolate cake mix for these cookies.
Great recipe and so easy to make!
So easy will make again.
Sally, I’ve made these cookies twice already and both times the people I shared them with raved they were the best cookies they had ever had! Thank you for your willingness to share as I also adore baking! Happy Holidays!
Hi Sally,
I’m trying these cookies for the first time. Just curious why the recipe calls for boxed cake mix?
Is it just for ease?
Hi Kevin, this recipe uses cake mix both for ease and to give it that delicious cake batter flavor.