The best SOFT and CHEWY SUGAR COOKIES loaded with SPRINKLES! No chill time – you can be diving into freshly baked Sprinkle Cookies in under 30 minutes.
My inner 5 year-old is squealing, because: SPRINKLE COOKIES! I mean, tell me these don’t brighten your Monday just a touch? Soft, chewy sugar cookies loaded with colorful sprinkles. Gimme!
This recipe was one of the first that I ever published, and I decided it was time for a facelift. I tweaked the recipe just a bit, and I took some new pictures (note: I also consumed no fewer than a dozen cookies during this process). #hardwork
We recently celebrated the start of a new school year, and I always make my kiddos cookies on the first day of school. For Juliette’s first day of Pre-K, she came home to a big plate of Sprinkle Cookies. If there is anything that you should know about Juliette, it is that she is one fancy girl. She loves glitter, sparkles, unicorns, dress up, and she especially loves SPRINKLES (pink and purple specifically). She was thrilled to dive into these cookies after her first day of school.
Sprinkle Cookies
- This recipe starts with a basic sugar cookie dough. In addition to vanilla, I also add a tiny bit of almond extract. I absolutely love almond extract in a sugar cookie – feel free to leave it out, if you’d prefer.
- After preparing the dough, we add a generous amount of sprinkles. I use rainbow sprinkles, but you can use any color that you’d like.
- The dough gets scooped into balls, then gently rolled in more sprinkles. This makes the sprinkles really noticeable; there’s no guessing what kind of cookies these are.
- Now here’s the key: We are going to underbake these just slightly. In order to get a soft, slightly chewy cookie, we have to remove them from the oven before they are completely cooked through. They will continue cooking on the baking sheet after coming out of the oven.
Whether you’re celebrating something special, or you’re just craving a Sprinkle Cookie, I hope you give these a try. The dough balls also freeze well, if you want to stick some in the freezer for another day. Freshly baked cookies at the ready? Yes, please!
Love SUGAR COOKIES? Try these: SUGAR COOKIE BARS – EASY SUGAR COOKIES – SUGAR COOKIE FRUIT TARTS
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Recipe
Soft Sprinkle Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour, add an extra tablespoon for thicker cookies
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened slightly but still cool
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract, optional
- ¾ cup sprinkles, see note
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat butter until smooth. Slowly pour in the sugar, mixing as you pour. Beat sugar and butter for a minute, until light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract, mixing until combined and scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Add in flour mixture and mix until just combined. Add ½ cup sprinkles (see note) and stir by hand until combined.
- Scoop 2-tablespoon portions of dough and roll into a ball. Place ¼ cup sprinkles on a plate and press the tops of the dough balls in sprinkles. Place dough balls onto prepared baking sheet leaving about a couple inches for spreading. I like to mound the dough balls higher rather than wider so that they bake up on the thicker side.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes. The edges should be completely set, and the centers should look slightly under cooked. See note about shaping the cookies immediately after baking. Place the baking sheets on wire racks to cool. Repeat with remaining dough once the baking sheets are completely cool.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Information is an estimate based on third-party calculations and may vary based on products used and serving sizes.
Tried this recipe?Leave a comment and rating below!
Jessica
Will be adding this to my list of regular cookie recipes. So good and they look so fun! My kids loved them.
Celebrating Sweets
Fantastic! I’m so happy to hear that. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Enjoy! 🙂 -Allison
Tania
Delicious. A keeper recipe for sure. Easy to follow and if my cookie baking sister asked for the recipe, they must be Great!!!
Celebrating Sweets
Thanks, Tania! I’m glad you enjoyed them. Thanks for taking the time to comment. 🙂 -Allison
Cosomo
These are delish…..didn’t disappoint. Think the recipe will make cookie bars or will I have to double it?
Celebrating Sweets
Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed them. Not sure about bars. Maybe double for a 9×13? I do have a sugar cookie bar recipe that you could add sprinkles to: https://celebratingsweets.com/soft-sugar-cookie-bars/
Ashika Singh
I am hoping to make these today for my son’s Spiderman themed party with blue and red sprinkles. Is this recipe easily doubled? Or should I make 2 separate batches? Looks delish!
Celebrating Sweets
I’ve never doubled it, but I would guess that it should work just fine. Enjoy!
Talin
Just made these. Very easy and super delicious. Thank you for the recipe!
Celebrating Sweets
I’m glad you enjoyed them! Thanks for taking the time to comment. 🙂 -Allison
Trish
Excellent for grandchildren and their parents! It would seem apparent that great sprinkle sugar cookie recipes, would be easy to find, but they are not. This recipe is easy and delish, thank you,
Celebrating Sweets
I’m glad you enjoyed these! Thanks for taking the time to comment. Happy baking! -Allison
Kayla
Just made these for a snack, so good! Had to bake a little longer because of my stove. Will add to our Christmas cookie baking list (using themed sprinkles of course!!!)
Celebrating Sweets
I’m glad you enjoyed them! Thanks for taking the time to comment. 🙂 Happy baking! -Allison
Stef
Followed the recipe exactly…apart from couldn’t get them to cook. After 10 minutes they were still soggy, stick your finger in the batter and go right through. After 20 mins very similar, but no longer a pale colour! No idea what I managed to do, hoping they still taste good when they eventually cook, because they definitely don’t look great!
Celebrating Sweets
Hi, Stef. The centers will be slightly underdone when you remove them from the oven. Not completely raw, but definitely not cooked all the way through.
As they cool the butter will firm up and give them the correct consistency. Did you use real butter? Not margarine or butter spread? Have you checked your oven temp recently? It’s not uncommon for oven temperatures to be off. Perhaps that played a role?
This recipe has quite a few reviews and I haven’t heard this specific problem before, so I’m not sure what could have gone wrong.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Sandy Evans
How many small cookies does this recipe make. I need 8 dozen. Thank you!
Celebrating Sweets
When using a 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop, this recipe produces between 15-20 medium sized cookies. If you want to make them really small, I would guess that that you could use half that much dough for each cookie and have between 30-40 mini cookies. Note: if making the cookies smaller, you’ll need to reduce the bake time. I’d start checking them around 6 minutes.
Neena
I made these cookies and aside from having to adjust the cooking time a bit for my oven, the recipe was absolutely perfect! They really hit the spot and I already see me making these several more times in the not so distant future. Thanks!
Celebrating Sweets
I’m glad you enjoyed them! Thanks for taking the time to share your experience. Happy baking! 🙂 -Allison