Crinkle cookies using boxed cake mix are about to make your dessert-planning life a whole lot easier! Four simple ingredients and you’re on your way to yummy cookies in about 20 minutes, including baking time. These can be made with pretty much any cake mix that’s about 16 oz in weight.
The ones I tried first were lemon. OMG! They were super yummy. Next up was chocolate. Good, but not the same delight as the lemon and you know me, I like my chocolate. Maybe a ‘better’ cake mix or the addition of some chocolate chips would help. Then again, maybe the kids will pop them so quickly you won’t have to worry.
I used a cookie scoop to portion these out onto the baking sheets. Don’t overfill the scoop as the cookies do spread and they’ll all stick together. (I learn these things so you don’t have to!) You want a nice round cookie drop on the baking sheet.
‘Pro’ tip (ha ha): When covering the dough in powdered sugar, I put the sugar into an 8 oz ramekin a few tablespoons at a time. Drop the dough in and swirl it around in the ramekin. You get a completely covered ball of dough that is nicely rounded. And, you don’t have to keep wiping off your hands–the ramekin does the dirty work for you. You will need to loosen the sugar up after a couple of cookies, it tends to pack down. Either tap the ramekin on the counter or run the back of the tablespoon around in the sugar.
Give these crinkle cookies a try when you’re short on time or ingredients to bake from scratch. Not saying you’ll never go back, but you can get these done pretty quickly.
The basic recipe is below. Feel free to add lemon zest to the lemon crinkle cookies or chocolate chips (mini) to the chocolate crinkles. You can also use a yellow cake mix and roll in cinnamon sugar instead of powdered sugar. More like a donut than a cookie!

Prep Time | 10 minutes |
Cook Time | 10 minutes |
Servings |
dozen
|
- 1 box cake mix lemon, chocolate, yellow, your choice
- 6 tbsp melted butter can use oil instead
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar or, cinnamon sugar for yellow cake mix
Ingredients
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- Preheat oven to 375. Use parchment paper on two medium-size baking sheets.
- Mix cake mix, butter, and eggs together. Will be stiff, not runny like cake batter.
- Use a cookie scoop to form balls of dough, one at a time.
- Drop ball of dough into powdered sugar in a ramekin or small bowl. Swirl dough around in powdered sugar to coat all sides and really get the shape into a ball. (After a few, the wrist action on the swirl will come naturally!) Place dough on baking sheet, approximately 2" apart, repeat until sheet is full.
- Pop in oven for 9-11 minutes. Cookies should look cracked but not browned. Edges will be firm, crinkles will look moist. (I overdid the second batch. They were still yummy, but you really want the moistness to come thru.)
- Set up next cookie sheet while first one bakes.
- Cool (if you can wait that long). Enjoy! Crinkle cookies keep for several days in plastic bags on the counter, longer in the fridge. Not that you'll ever get to test that! 😉
Perfect, simple cookie to make with little kids. They can easily (if sloppily) roll the dough balls around on a plate with powdered sugar if they can't get the motion of rotating them in the ramekin.
Looking for more recipes? Check out the 'What's Cooking, Rock' page!