With St. Patrick’s Day coming next week, we’ve been getting into the spirit and have baked up some fun and festive treats. To start, I want to share these cute and irrisistibly delicious Taste the Rainbow Sprinkle Cookies. My kids were pretty excited to make these. There’s loads of their favorite ingredient, sprinkles. And they’re colored green, which for a 7-year-old boy, that’s a really exciting thing. Then their eyes almost popped out of their heads when I told then we’ll also be dipping them in white chocolate and “splattering” them with gold.

We try and bake one thing together, of their choice, each week and these were an absolute hit. And because they are so fast and easy to make (and, of course the sprinkles,) my newly-turned-4-year-old enjoyed every minute, without losing focus.

And my favorite part, these take a fun shortcut, (something I don’t usually do as a pastry chef,) with the addition of boxed cake mix. It adds such a yummy flavor. And as a mama who tries to keep things pretty clean when it comes to what the kiddos eat, using Annie’s Organic Confetti Cake Mix, was a no-brainer.

The ingredient list in these is sweet and simple plus just a cup of the cake mix. They’ve got the usual pantry-staple suspects- butter, sugar, flour, salt, vanilla, an egg and of course the sprinkles. The cake mix includes it’s own sprinkles, but can there ever be enough sprinkles? And then white chocolate if you want to do the dip. It’s optional but adds for a really fun look.

As you can see from the photos, I rolled some of the cookie dough balls in sprinkles and kept some plain with only the sprinkles in the dough. Both looks are great, it’s really a matter of choice. Of course, you can guess which the monkeys preferred. I think I like just on the inside personally.

A few key tips for cookie success:

• If you’re rolling the cookies in sprinkles, do so right after scooping before chilling so they stick better.
• Scooping the cookies right after making the dough is the easiest unless you want a real arm workout.
• Chilling the cookie dough scoops before baking, for at least an hour, is key to the perfect textured cookie.
• DO NOT overbake the cookies. You want the outsides just set while the insides are still pretty soft. Think slightly underbaked. They’ll continue baking on the trays once out of the oven.
• And probably most importantly, once you add the flour and cake mix, really try not to overmix. I like to pulse a few times with the mixer on low, and then finish off the batter by hand.

I hope you’ll give these a try. They truly are a fun and tasty treat. And if you do, I’d be ever so grateful to hear how it goes down in the comments below or tagged on Instagram. It really helps me as a creator and small business to hear your feedback.

Happy Friday!