Looking for a new, fun and easy way to celebrate a birthday? Our delicious birthday cake cookies are exactly the treat you should make for your next celebration!
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Birthday Cake Cookies Recipe
Birthday’s are a time to celebrate and an amazing dessert should be required at every birthday. However, you may not always want the standard birthday cake. So what can you have instead of a birthday cake? Birthday cake cookies! This super easy recipe is easy to make and tastes fantastic. Anyone would be ecstatic to enjoy these cookies on their birthday. Take a look at how easy they are to put together and start preheating your oven now- you are going to want start baking these right away.
How to Make Birthday Cookies
While we may have ditched the traditional birthday cake, that doesn’t mean that the boxed cake mix needs to go too. Our recipe uses vanilla cake mix as the base of cookies, adding just a few simple ingredients to transform the mix into awesome, bite sized, irresistible cookies. Take a look at how the magic works:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
- Whisk together the eggs, oil and vanilla in a large bowl using a hand mixer or stand mixer.
- Add the cake mix and baking powder to the mix and whisk again.
- Stir in the white chocolate chips and sprinkles.
- Scoop the batter onto a greased sheet tray and bake!
- Store in an airtight container once cooled for up to a week.
Such a simple way to make cookies that really only takes a few minutes of time to make. And, thanks to that vanilla mix and the white chocolate chips, these cookies are going to taste exactly like a cake and we know you are going to love them! Except they are chewier, personally sized and way more exciting.
What’s in Birthday Cookies?
Our birthday cake cookies have three important ingredients that make them taste like a real birthday cake. Here is how we get that birthday cake taste inside these cookies:
- White chocolate chips- The white chocolate mimics the taste of frosting making these cookies cake like
- Vanilla cake mix- Vanilla cake mix already holds that flavor of a birthday cake so using it inside the cookies brings that amazing, celebratory flavor to each cookie. Most vanilla cake mixes are also made with cake flour which helps add to the lightness of these cookies. (If you have ever wondered can you use cake flour for cookies, the answer is yes! And it even makes them better- lighter, fluffier and soft).
- Sprinkles- It isn’t a celebration without rainbow sprinkles! Sprinkles add a little bit of sweetness but their real job is to add some fun, festive color to the birthday cake cookies. When you see those rainbow sprinkles you automatically know it is a celebration!
If you want to switch up the cookies, try adding dark chocolate chips or using one color sprinkles if you know the birthday boy or girl has a favorite color (or some extra sprinkles for some more fun color!). These are easy to personalize to match a birthday theme or a person’s usual cake preference and customizing the cookies doesn’t take any more time! (let us know how you made these cookies your own in the comments below!)
Making Cookies with Cake Mix
If you have never heard of making cookies using cake mix before, this innovation may change how you make cookies forever. The mix already has all the basic ingredients you need to make cookies. Flour, baking soda, and flavorings are all premixed into the box which means you do not need to add much to make a perfect cookie– most of the ingredients are already measured for you!
Rather than following the directions on the box, you will need to add a few different items than if you were making a cake. If you are wondering how do you make cookie batter less cakey and more like cookies, here is how:
- Adding baking powder will help the cookies rise more and make the texture more like a cookie and less like cake.
- The coconut oil will make the batter more dense, again, making it more like a cookie and less cakey. You can also opt to use melted butter but the coconut oil adds a nice subtle flavor to the cake mix cookies that go perfectly with the vanilla, birthday cakey taste.
- Many boxed mixes ask for one egg but our recipe uses two. This will help the cookie set faster as they bake and bind the cookies together as they bake, making a solid cookie rather than a crumby cake.
Each ingredient plays its part and works together to what is already in the boxed cake mix. It is such an easy recipe to make, only requires one bowl and will create a fun cookie that you will love!
How to Make a Cookie Cake
If you love the idea of cookies for a birthday, but still want the tradition of one large dessert, why not try to make a large cookie that looks like a cake? Cookie cakes are fun way to celebrate a birthday (or any special occasion) that you will love. To make this dessert, follow our recipe exactly however instead of scooping the dough into small cookies, form one large, flat cookie using all the dough. Follow these tips to make baking a success:
- Make the cookie about 1/2″ thick on the sheet tray. Any thicker and it will not bake in the center
- If the edges of the cookie start to turn brown while baking but the center is still raw, place a piece of foil over the large cookie and continue to bake. The foil will prevent the heat of the oven from being directly on the cookie, causing it to brown quickly.
- The cookie may take a few more minutes of time to bake so start checking it after 9 minutes as directed in our recipe but expect it to take about 15 minutes or so to bake all the dough into one large cookie.
As you can see, birthday cookies are super easy to make, only take a little bit of time and a new birthday tradition that you are going to love. So grab those rainbow sprinkles out of the cabinet and preheat your oven to 350 so that you can get ready to make this delicious recipe! It only takes a few minutes and the results are amazing! Way faster than any cakes out there…
FAQ’s
How do you make cookie batter less cakey?
Melting the butter for your cookie recipe will make them much less cakey and more chewy. All purpose flour will also help make the recipe more chewy and less cakey
What can you have instead of birthday cake?
Birthday cookies of course!! This recipe is perfect to make for any celebration
Can you use cake flour for cookies?
You definitely can! Cake flour will make your cookies light and fluffy which can be quite delicious.
After you try this cookie recipe, you may want to send us your email address so we can sign you up to have delicious recipes sent right to your inbox. Feel free to browse our recipes as well, as our website is full of amazing dinners, desserts and so much more! We are always adding new easy to make recipes as well so check back often! We also love to hear from you so leave a message in the comments below and let us know how you are enjoying our recipes!
Print
Birthday Cake Cookies
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Total Time: 15 mins
- Yield: 2 dozen 1x
Description
Festive and fun, these cookies are perfect for celebrating both kids and adults birthdays!
Ingredients
- 1 box vanilla (or white) cake mix
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup melted coconut oil (or canola oil)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- 1 cup sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375(F) degrees and prepare a baking sheet with non-stick spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil and vanilla. Add in cake mix and baking powder. Stir until batter is fully combined.
- Stir in white chocolate chips and sprinkles then scoop 2 tablespoons batter onto prepared baking sheet. Repeat, spacing cookie batter out evenly on the baking sheet.
- Bake for about 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Carefully remove from oven and let cool before serving.
Notes
Pro Tips:
- Melted butter works perfectly in place of the coconut oil in this recipe. If you don’t have butter on hand, try canola oil or vegetable oil in place of the coconut oil. However, butter is the best tasting, most delicious substitute!
- Use sprinkles that are holiday themed to make these cookies into a holiday treat. Christmas sprinkles in December, orange and black sprinkles in October, red white and blue sprinkles in July…the possibilities are endless!
- White cake mix will work as well and the baking method and recipe will be the same. In fact, the white cake will make lighter cookies which means those festive sprinkles will stand out even more! You will love these cookies when made with white cake mix as well- just as delicious!
New FB and pinterest friend stopping by. My daughter made a similar cookie with me a while back. They are good aren’t they? Yours look great. Lucky hubby!
Thanks! So glad you stopped by =) Yes we only make them on special occassions so we don’t eat too many!