Cake Mix Crinkle Cookies

These Cake Mix Crinkle Cookies are fudgey, delicious and come out perfect every time. The best part? You only need 4 ingredients to make this easy holiday treat!

I have to say, I love nothing more than the cozy holiday season – the music, the decoration, the BAKING! I love baking cookies for Christmas with the kids, and because that’s messy enough by itself 😉 I prefer my cookie recipes to be foolproof and extremely simple.

I know there are many recipes for cake mix cookies out there, and mine isn’t necessarily different when you look at the ingredients. Most instructions aren’t very thorough though, or skip important parts. But I’ll give you my best tips how I make my Cake Mix Crinkles come out picture perfect every time!

Ingredients you’ll need

This is just an overview of ingredients, scroll to the recipe at the bottom for exact quantities.

Ingredient notes

• Cake mix: I usually make this recipe with the Betty Crocker Devil’s Food cake mix, but my store was out so I used Duncan Hines. Works just as well! To be honest, you can make crinkle cookies with pretty much any cake mix. I do like chocolate crinkles best! Lemon isn’t too shabby, either.
• Oil: Feel free to use melted butter in place of the oil. It will give a richer taste, but I mostly opt for the ease of a neutral vegetable oil.

Step by step instructions

The cookie dough is really simple: Just stir together cake mix, oil and eggs in a mixing bowl until smooth.

I recommend using a sturdy whisk to properly break up the eggs. If you only have a silicone whisk, it will not be strong enough. In this case I recommend whisking the oil and eggs separately first, then fold in the cake mix with a rubber spatula.

Either way, you’ll end up with a very sticky, soft dough that needs to be chilled in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours. Chilling is very important, otherwise you will probably not be able to handle the dough and the cookies will turn out very flat and crisp.

Once the dough is chilled, you’ll need to shape them. Even though the cookie dough is firmer now, it’s still extremely messy if you don’t do it right. Here’s how the shaping works easily and mess-free:

1. Use a cookie scoop (or a measuring spoon, or even a regular spoon will do!) to scoop out an about golfball sized bit of cookie dough. Don’t even try to put this blob of naked dough into any shape, drop it straight into a bowl with confectioner’s sugar and toss it around to add a thin coating of sugar.
2. Now take the cookie dough bit and shape it into a ball by rolling it between your hands.
3. Finally, place it in the confectioner’s sugar again and really pack on the sugar. You’ll need to use your hands to kind of press it onto the cookie ball – it needs to be thickly covered all over. That’s how you get the cookies to look pretty!

The final and also important step: The baking. I always always line my cookie sheet, because I don’t want to scrub cookie bits and sugar off the sheets. Leave enough space between the cookies – 2 inches is best. And only bake one pan at a time! I have tried baking two at once before, and all the icing sugar melted off the cookies on the bottom pan. So, one at a time, please.

Don’t overbake these cookies – they should look nicely crackly when they’re done, but they will should still feel pudding-soft when you take them out! Then they will flatten a little and firm up a bit and come out nice, dense and fudgey.

Let them cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Recipe tips

I’m going to collect the tips from the step by step instructions above for your convenience:

• Use a sturdy whisk for the cookie dough to evenly break up the eggs. Alternatively, whisk the oil and eggs together first, then fold in the cake mix with a rubber spatula until smooth. I do not recommend using a hand mixer, the dough should not be overmixed or the cookies come out tough.
• Do not skip the chilling, the cookies will be nearly impossible to shape without chilling.
• Scoop the chilled dough into golfball-sized bits and drop them straight into confectioner’s sugar to lightly coat, then shape into balls. This will make sure your hands don’t end up super messy and sticky.
• Once the cookie dough is shaped, you’ll need to coat it with more confectioner’s sugar – each cookie dough ball needs to be thickly and evenly covered for the cookies to come out pretty.
• Do not overbake the cookies, they will still feel very soft when they’re done. If you overbake these, they will come out tough and cake-like. You really want these to be fudgey!

Storage tips

Keep the cooled cookies in an airtight container on the counter for 4-5 days. They tend to lose their texture after this time.

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