Soft, sugary and chewy; meet your new favourite sugar cookie recipe perfect for Christmas baking, sugar cookies with sprinkles. This post is sponsored by Burnbrae Farms. Learn more about their Cookie Eggchange Contest.
I make sugar cookies every single year for Christmas. Typically, I'll decorate them with royal icing, or add some spices into them for chai sugar cookies, but this year, I wanted to do something different.
Enter, sprinkles. You can use whatever sprinkles you like, for these cookies I’ve just used my favourite colourful sprinkles, but you could easily adapt these cookies for whatever holiday or colour theme you like.
Sugar cookies with egg whites?
Yes, these cookies are made with egg whites only. Using two egg whites gives the cookies enough liquid for them to rise, (extra liquid = extra steam), and you'll end up with chewy and tender cookies that are a little softer than if you were to have used egg yolks in the batter.
For this recipe, I'm using my favourite Naturegg Simply Egg Whites–I always have a carton in my fridge for baking cookies like cinnamon macaroons or ginger molasses cookies. It makes things so much easier, especially when it comes to holiday baking! Just measure your liquid egg whites (they are made from 100% pure egg whites) and off you go.
Serious Eats has a fabulous read on the purpose of egg whites in sugar cookies.
Using liquid egg whites in baking?
A simple ratio for substituting liquid egg whites when a recipe calls for egg whites: ¼ cup of liquid egg whites is equivalent to 2 egg whites. One egg white is about 2 tablespoon of liquid egg white.
Baking with sprinkles can be a little confusing, so I've broken out a few of the most common frequently asked questions when it comes to baking sprinkle sugar cookies.
Do you put sprinkles on before or after baking?
Put the sprinkles on before baking. Roll the dough balls into sprinkles and then carefully place on a cookie sheet. This will ensure that your cookies are covered in sprinkles and end up looking just like this photo.
The key is rolling and shaping the dough balls in your hands before rolling them in the sprinkles. The heat and moisture from your hands will dampen the cookie dough slightly, just enough for the sprinkles to adhere to the dough.
Sugar Cookies with Sprinkles
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 2 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- ¼ cup Naturegg Simply Egg Whites or 2 egg whites
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups coloured sprinkles, I always use small, circular sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt together.
- Beat butter with sugar using an electric mixer on medium speed for 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in egg whites and vanilla, about 30 seconds or so, until they have emulsified with butter and sugar. It may look like it won't come together--it will! Add the flour, baking powder and salt mix. Beat on low speed until just combined, another 30 seconds or so.
- Refrigerate the dough for 10 minutes to make it easier to handle.
- Roll rounded tablespoon portions of dough between your hands to form a ball. The dough balls should be about 1-½" in size. Roll each dough ball in sprinkles, you may need to press firmly to adhere as many sprinkles as possible. Place cookie dough balls 2-inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Bake in batches, for 12-15 minutes or until cookies have spread and bottoms are golden. Repeat with remaining dough.
Mo Wahl
These are amazing! SO sweet, but so festive and amazing. I halved the recipe and used a cookie scoop to measure my dough into cookie sized portions. I set my metal mixing bowl full of dough in our fridge for 10 minutes, set to “Fast Cool” which makes our fridge 33F. I used the long soft colored sprinkles that are often used for ice cream. They started to look slightly more melted at the 15 minute mark than they did at the 14 minute mark, but they don’t look bad!! Still super cute. Thanks so much for this recipe! I had made other cookies that call only for egg yolks, so I Googled Cookie Recipes that Use Only Egg Whites and found yours!
Louisa Clements
So glad you enjoyed this recipe, Mo! Thanks for taking the time to let me know–it’s a great way to use leftover egg whites. And yes, certain sprinkles can melt more, I find the small circular ones tend to have the best results in terms of melting. Thanks for taking the time to leave a review, it is much appreciated!
Brends
Should I have kept the dough chilled before putting g them in the oven? I had a runny mess!
Louisa Clements
Hi Brends, I’m so sorry to hear that you had trouble with the dough. I’ve never had that problem and tested this recipe many times and continue to make them every Christmas! Is it possible you used larger egg whites?
Debbie
I used your recipe for all my sugar cookies this Christmas. They look so festive on my cookie trays and my hubby says they’re his favorite this year.
Louisa Clements
Thank you Debbie! I’m so glad that you enjoyed these cookies this holiday season! :)
Andrea
Can I roll out the dough and make shapes like Christmas trees? Thanks!