Funfetti Cookies — These funfetti cookies are essentially sugar cookies from scratch that have been loaded with sprinkles. They have that nostalgic boxed cake flavor but are 100% homemade!
Funfetti Cookies From Scratch
Who can say no to super soft cookies with sprinkles baked in? I sure can’t.
It’s been on my bucket list to come up with a softbatch-style sugar cookie recipe that’s soft, and not at all cakey, with just hints of chewiness around the edges. And I wanted to make these from scratch, not from Funfetti cake mix. I have nothing against it, and once upon a time used cake mix a whole lot more, but these sugar cookies with sprinkles are 100% from scratch.
I wanted cookies with less cakiness than Lofthouse Cookies, and I wanted drop rather than roll out cookies recipes. I didn’t want to have to frost them, so baking in sprinkles was my solution. I definitely didn’t want hard or crispy cookies, which are words that should never describe cookies.
I know people love sugar cookies and decorated Christmas cookies, but I think they’re tasteless and way too hard. I would never waste my calorie budget on cardboard cookies with frosting that’s crunchy. No way.
I made these Chewy Sugar Sprinkles Cookies previously and while I like them I felt like I could improve on them, so I did just that. For these funfetti cookies, I worked cornstarch into the dough. It’s my secret weapon for creating softbatch-style cookies. I’ve written about it before so many times and swear by it.
I also included both almond and vanilla extracts in the cookies to really play up the Funfetti cake batter taste.
And you can’t have Funfetti without sprinkles, and the abundance of them adds texture and flavor. Everything is better with sprinkles. The more the merrier.
These birthday cake cookies make a smaller batch, just 15 cookies, perfect when you don’t want or need dozens of cookies laying around tempting you. Feel free to double it if you’d like.
The cookies are pillowy soft and tender with just a tiny bit of chewiness around the edges. They’re lightweight without being airy or dry. They’re moist with a rich buttery flavor. If you’re a ‘dough’ person, rather than an add-ins person, and can appreciate the simple pleasures of a really good, flavorful dough, this dough will be your new best friend.
I have no willpower around super soft and tender sugar cookies from scratch like these. Especially when sprinkles are involved.
What’s in Funfetti Cookies?
For these homemade funfetti cookies, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- Granulated sugar
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- Almond extract
- All-purpose flour
- Cornstarch
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Sprinkles
Note that I used clear imitation vanilla extract rather than real vanilla extract. This is a recipe where using the cheap stuff is preferred to the real thing because imitation provides a classic, bakery-cake, nostalgic flavor. It’s found in the baking aisle next to real vanilla and it’s a fraction of the cost.
How to Make Funfetti Cookies From Scratch
To make these birthday cake cookies, you first need to cream together the butter, sugar, egg, and extracts for about 5 minutes. Do NOT shortcut the creaming process — you need to make sure the butter mixture is very light in color and fluffy before adding the other ingredients.
Add in the dry ingredients and mix until combined, making sure to not break apart the sprinkles. Then, scoop the cookie dough onto a plate and roll into balls before flattening them slightly with your hands. Chill the dough for at least 2 hours before baking the cookies.
Once the dough has chilled, bake for 8 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if undercooked, pale, and glossy in the center. These cookies should not turn golden or brown at all and should stay white.
How to Store Funfetti Cookies
You should store these homemade cookies in an airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. If you freeze the cookies, you can reheat them in the oven or set them on the counter to thaw.
Can I Make These Cookies in Advance?
Absolutely! I make the dough, scoop into balls, cover and refrigerate them for up to 5 days, before baking. You can also freeze the cookie dough (after you’ve scooped it) and bake these sugar cookies with sprinkles directly from frozen.
Can I Omit the Almond Extract?
If you have a nut allergy or are simply out of extract, I’d add extra vanilla extract to make up for the lack of almond extract. Your funfetti cookies won’t taste exactly like mine without the almond extract, but they’ll still be delicious!
My Cookies Came Out Flat, What Happened?
Sometimes these things happen! But this funfetti cookie recipe always turns out perfectly for me. If you need help troubleshooting this cookie recipe, check out this chocolate chip cookie recipe for all of my best tips and tricks to making cookies from scratch (scroll to the bottom of the post for the list of tips).
Can I Double This Recipe?
Most definitely! These sugar cookies with sprinkles can be doubled or even tripled to feed a crowd.
Can I Make These Into Cookie Bars?
I haven’t tried that myself, so I can’t say for sure how they’d turn out. However, I have lots of cookie bar recipes on my blog already! If you’re looking for inspiration, try out my Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars, M&M’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, or Snickerdoodle Cookie Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting.
Does it Matter What Type of Sprinkles I Use?
Nope! But I’d steer clear of the sprinkle balls if I were you, just because they’re fairly hard.
Can I Roll Out These Cookies and Cut Them Into Shapes?
I haven’t tried that myself, so I’m not sure that’d work. If you roll out these cookies, I’m afraid they wouldn’t turn out soft and chewy at all.
Can I Make These with Whole Wheat Flour?
I haven’t tried that myself, but my gut says no. Whole wheat flour would majorly alter the texture and flavor of these funfetti cookies.
Can I Make These Gluten-Free?
I’ve never made these with a GF flour, but if you find one that works please leave me a comment below!
Tips for Making Funfetti Cookies
You absolutely must chill this dough before baking, no exceptions. The cookies will spread and bake flat and thin if you don’t chill the dough.
And don’t over bake! The cookies will look quite raw and underdone at 8 minutes, but they firm up while they cool. Don’t be tempted to bake them longer because they’re not meant to be browned, golden, or crisp. They’re meant to be white and soft.
Also note that the cornstarch in these birthday cake cookies can’t be substituted. It’s the secret ingredient and they wouldn’t turn out properly without it.
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Softbatch Funfetti Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ teaspoons clear imitation vanilla extract, real vanilla extract may be substituted
- 1 ½ teaspoons almond extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
- ¾ cup sprinkles, jimmies
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar, egg, extract, and beat on medium-high speed until well-creamed, light and fluffy, about 5 minutes (or use a hand mixer and beat for at least 7 minutes). Do not shortcut the creaming process; make sure dough is very light in color and fluff, stop to scrape down the sides of the mixer as necessary.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, optional salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Add the sprinkles and beat momentarily to incorporate, less than 1 minute, or fold in by hand.
- Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping two tablespoon mounds (I made 15). Place mounds on a large plate, flatten mounds slightly with your palm, cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line two baking sheets with Silpats, or spray with cooking spray. Place mounds on baking sheets, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet). Bake for 8 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if undercooked, pale, and glossy in the center. These cookies should not turn golden or brown at all and should stay white. Do not bake longer than 9 minutes for soft cookies because they firm up as they cool (The cookies shown in the photos were baked with dough that had been chilled overnight, allowed to come to room temp for 15 minutes, and were baked for 8 minutes, with trays rotated at the 4-minute mark). Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
- Store cookies airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored airtight in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 4 months, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Cookies From Scratch:
The Best Soft & Chewy M&M’s Cookies — These bakery-style M&M’s cookies are soft, chewy, buttery, and LOADED with M&M’s and chocolate chips. No one can resist these cookies!
Softbatch Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies — These soft batch cookies are made with a combination of butter and cream cheese, which makes them extra rich and delicious!
Frosted Soft Sugar Cookies – Super SOFT sugar cookies that just melt in your mouth!! If you’ve ever thought that sugar cookies can be boring or dry, this EASY recipe with frosting and sprinkles will change your mind!
Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies — These cookies are soft, moist, and oh-so chewy. They taste like banana bread and chocolate chip cookies rolled into one dessert!
The Best Snickerdoodles – Soft, pillowy puffs that are so irresistible! The closest recipe to Mrs. Fields snickerdoodles that you’ll find!
One-Bowl, No-Mixer, No-Chill, Extra-Large Chocolate Chip Cookie For One – An incredibly FAST and EASY recipe that produces ONE extra-large soft and chewy cookie that’s loaded with chocolate!
Funfetti Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies — The cookies are loaded with Oreos, sprinkles, chocolate chips, and are adapted from my favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies.
This looks wonderful and homemade, I have to try this! We would love for you to share at our fun Super Summer Saturday. Thanks! Julie
These are like piles of funfetti awesomeness. I’m in love!
Seriously! My mood just picked up looking at all those happy sprinkles! No shortage, that’s for sure.
Is anyone having a problem with these flattening? I did the overnight chill and have a thermometer in my oven and they flattened like crazy. I mean like totally flat. My baking soda is fresh, but I still (I left a question on this a few days ago) don’t see how it can work without an acid… especially after seeing what happened to these cookies when they went into the oven. I’m going to try them with baking powder the next time. Love the idea of these, but do not like flat cookies… which is why I love Averie’s recipes :)
Carolyn you can see from my photos that my cookies were not flat and had nice lift and were quite puffy in the center. There have been others who have written in and have already made them with success, too. I wrote the recipe exactly like I made them and not sure what to say about yours. You could try baking powder, yes; you could add slightly more flour, maybe 1/4 cup or so. And maybe play around with the size of your mounds. You can see from my raw dough balls they are very full and round. Sorry that your cookies flattened. If you try other things, let me know.
I love your website and I’m making these cookies for a cookie exchange tomorrow and had the same problem with them flattening. :( have you heard of any tricks to fix this problem?
I don’t have any issues with flattening and have remade this recipe as this cookie, too – and have made both versions, many times.
https://www.averiecooks.com/2013/10/lofthouse-soft-sugar-sprinkles-cookies.html
Sorry you’re having issues. I would recommend doing any combination of the following: adding 1 tsp baking powder, adding 1/4 cup more flour, using a high quality flour like King Arthur all-pupose (red/white bag) – other brands of flour don’t yield as good of results, ever, in any baking – from bread to muffins to cookies – for me; baking on a Silpat (it’s instrumental for thick cookies and if you’re not, that’s a huge problem right there)….LMK what you do!
the first tray i put into the oven came out quite flat. I fluffed the mounds of dough on the second tray i put in instead of slightly flattening the mounds as the recipe says, and those came out lovely!
Glad they came out just right for you on the second tray!
Let me just say.. All of your recipes never disappoint.. My daughter and I made these cooks last night and they were amazing.
Thanks for telling me you tried them with your daughter and you’re happy! That is awesome, Erika! Thanks!
Could you omit the almond extract or add extra vanilla instead? I really want to bake these without having to make a trip to the store!
Yes of course – fine! If you have it, great. If not, don’t make a special trip. LMK how you like them!
I love love love softbatch cookies! The softer and fluffier the better. I hate it when the dough is dry and crumbly! Blech! These sound like winners ;)
These look amazing! So soft and chewy, and you’re right, cannot do wrong with rainbow sprinkles. I love anything having to do with “funfetti” and this recipe is no exception.
Thanks, Liz!
So fun!
Yummy! I can’t resist soft cookies :) these are fantastic!
Just looking at those is enough to put a smile on your face, let alone eating them – love the colours! And thanks for the tips on making soft cookies – it can be tricky to get the balance right :)
Glad you like the tips and I love your blog name!
These look incredible! Seriously, there is nothing better than a soft and warm cookie out of the oven, especially with sprinkles in them! :)
Super soft baked cookies are my most favorite! And, the kids would have a blast making these this coming weekend…already on the to-bake list! Pinning and printing as I type! (=
What’s not to love about sprinkles and cookies? :)
100% scratch 200% love! GREG
These look and sound absolutely delicious, yum!
Kelly