emmakitchen Happy (almost) holidays, everyone! This season, I’m enamored with these buttery, crinkly-topped Accidental Confetti Cookies. They are absolutely delicious, and the texture is one of a kind! I created them this week (more on that later) and the moment I tried one I knew I’d be adding the recipe to my holiday cookie rotation. Speaking of, I cannot wait ’til Christmas (10 more days)! Even outside of baking, I think it’ll be one of the best ones yet.
Allow me to explain. The pandemic has gotten to all of us, and at least where I’m at, it’s only getting worse. So for Christmas, I’ve been kind of predicting that everyone will convert all their negative, cooped-up energy into full force holiday cheer. And honestly, it’s working for me! All my presents are fully wrapped, my Christmas playlist is poppin’, and I’ve never been more ahead of gift shopping. I’m truly in my element right now. Except, I did have a little baking screw-up… which leads us to the inspiration for these Accidental Confetti Cookies.
inspiration
Life right now has been pretty low-key. School in my city has gone all remote, the county is in purple, and I can’t even go to the store! It’s been mildly depressing, so to ramp things up a bit, I decided to test my culinary skills and make the beautiful beast I’d been coveting for a while: the internet-famous Milk Bar Cake. She’s gorgeous. 3 hearty layers of whimsical confetti cake, enticingly thick discs of icing, and a quirky naked look, with crispity sprinkle crumbs to top it all off. If you haven’t seen it…
I’d been wanting to make the Milk Bar Birthday Cake forever, and try it for even longer. However, the $75-with-shipping price tag put me off buying one, and the long list of specialty ingredients deterred me from making it. But with nothing but time and an intense desire for cake, I finally put up my dukes on a Friday night and got to it.
It also ended up being somewhat of a celebration, because halfway through the baking process I found out I was admitted into one of my top colleges! Wooooo!!! (And, in the middle of writing this, I just got into another one⏤ gonna have another slice of cake now). So, it seemed pretty appropriate. My family and I were thrilled, and I could even have a light, fluffy slice of cake to commemorate it….. but, nope.
I tried so, *so* very hard to be proactive with this cake & put some of it in motion the night before. Starting with the cake crumb garnish, which required a low ‘n slow bake at 300°F. Easy enough, right? However, little did I know that my browser had refreshed, and I was actually following the cake recipe ahead, which, click the link….. needs to be baked at 350°. Kind of a difference there.
the result
When I realized my mistake, it was already too late. 30 minutes in, and I was thinking, “why is it so jiggly and NOT FORMING CRUMBS?!” I opened my phone again, and… oh.
Yet what happened to the batter looks far from accidental. The result was a delicious sheet pan of gooey, chewy cookies with a texture reminiscent of brownies⏤ that’s right, perfectly crispy on the edges and soft in the middle. It certainly wasn’t cake, it was something else. Something evolved. Thinking quickly, I took a crinkle-sided cookie cutter and stamped out 2 dozens’ worth of treats. Set them to cool on a wire rack, and… wow.
These cookies inadvertently had my favorite texture for anything ever. The kind of flavor and bite I search for in every cookie and brownie recipe. They’ve got a crackly top, a luxuriously tender crumb, and a caramelized crispy outside. I was floored that an accidental, improvised product could be so perfectly suited to everything I personally love in a dessert. I take it as a gift tailored by the baking gods.
So, they taste amazing and look thoroughly magical with the generous addition of rainbow sprinkles. My Accidental Confetti Cookies are super versatile, too, as they’re baked in a sheet pan & cut out after baking. If you’re not in a cookie mood, you could slice them into blondies, or even cut out larger rounds and make a cookie cake! Point is, the end product doesn’t even have to become a “cookie”; this is just a perfect, all-purpose baked good for your next birthday party or barbeque.
Although these Accidental Confetti Cookies were a pure fluke, I still know how the things I did contribute to the end result. Without further ado, let’s get into the ingredients & technique.
ingredients & technique
A lot went into screwing up these cookies in the *perfect* way. Follow these steps, and I think you’ll agree that they’re the best accident to ever happen.
This recipe actually requires quite a few specialty ingredients, so plan an Amazon order a few days before you intend to bake. Or, use the substitutions I offer below.
ingredients
- Butter & Shortening: You’ll want to make sure that these are both room temp for easy creaming. I used Crisco for the shortening.
- Eggs: The treatment of the eggs is essential to this cookie recipe. I know that sounds weird, but it actually adheres to a similar technique as used in my Brown Butter Double Chip Pumpkin Cookie recipe. You whip the batter extensively once the eggs are added. THIS is what gives the cookies that coveted crinkly top and the ever-gooey center. By creating somewhat of a meringue within the dough, the cookies bake into the sticky, buttery beauties they’re meant to be.
- Granulated & Light Brown Sugars: Both of these get paddled into the butter to start off the batter. I’d never seen a recipe specifically call for light brown sugar (usually it’s either dark or unspecified), so I decided to honor Christina Tosi’s genius and do it! I’m not sure what the difference is, but I’m a huge proponent of dark brown sugar so I’d be curious to see someone try it. Since these are cookies and not the actual cake, they’re meant to be caramelized and dense, so I bet it’d bring an even better depth of flavor.
- Buttermilk: Not much to say here, except I never actually buy buttermilk for baking because I’ll never use it otherwise. Instead, I mix skim milk and lemon juice! I meticulously weighed everything for this recipe (more on that later), so I just kind of improvised and used 100g of milk and 10g of lemon juice (around a tablespoon) instead of the 100g buttermilk that Milk Bar calls for. Works like a charm.
- Grapeseed Oil: Okay, so on the grapeseed oil: I’m not entirely sure that you couldn’t just use canola/vegetable oil for this, but I wanted to recreate the Milk Bar Cake as faithfully as possible so I bought it. There’s no real difference in flavor, but try it out if you want!
- Dry Ingredients: I’ll get into this more later, but I definitely recommend weighing your cookie components, specifically the flour, to the gram. Flour amount is what decides the line between cakey vs. chewy cookies. I guess if that’s your jam, add more, but I aim for a gooier cookie.
technique
- Baking Temp & Time: This is the real baseline of the Accidental Confetti Cookies. As I said earlier, I screwed both of these factors exponentially… for the Milk Bar Cake. For the Confetti Cookie, they are crucial. I baked my batter at 300°F for about 30 minutes. Once I realized I was following the cake recipe, I panicked, went with it, and raised the oven to the appropriate 350°F. I took the cookies out after 15 minutes of that because while the dough had not risen into a fluffy cake, it looked… done? Crispy edges, moist center, and a much darker color than the cake pictured. Yet fully delicious. I’m sure there’s a much less roundabout way to achieve similar results, but I know that this method 100% works, so I’m gonna stick with it.
- Measuring: Every time I make a labor-intensive recipe, one that I feel I’m putting too much time into to mess up, I make sure I weigh everything to a tee. For simpler baking, I use measuring cups with no problem. Here, I definitely recommend breaking out the food scale and counting out the exact grams of all your ingredients, just to ensure that your cookies or blondies come out perfectly.
- Mixing: Now, I whipped these cookies so much. The original recipe, for a cake, calls to mix the batter with eggs on medium-high, add the dry ingredients, then mix on medium-high again for up to 6 minutes, until the batter is pale and fluffy. Like I said, very similar to cookie recipes I’ve posted before. However, having learned from said similar cookie recipes, I know that more air is always a good thing. So, I chose to whip on high the first time, for an extended period of time until the batter had doubled in size and was very thick. Then, after adding the flour, sprinkles, salt, and baking powder, I whipped AGAIN for upwards of 5 minutes. The batter became almost white and was extremely thick. While it didn’t produce an airy cake, it sure did make some delicious cookies.
I think that’s everything! Here’s the method to the madness.
process for accidental confetti cookies
batter
You’ll start by creaming together the butter, shortening, and sugars. This combination gets mixed for around 2-3 minutes, and it’ll quickly become soft and light brown in color. Then, the eggs are added in and whipped for 4-6 minutes, or until suuuper thick and light in color⏤ see my picture on the right. You honestly can’t overmix this. The paddle should leave tracks, and the batter itself will feel airy. You can always taste it to make sure you’re on the right track!
dry mix ⇢ wet
Next, fold in the baking powder, cake flour, salt, and rainbow sprinkles at low speed. You can definitely also up the quantity of sprinkles in this recipe if you want a more colorful look! I followed the Milk Bar recipe exactly so I used the amount listed, but next time, I’d definitely add more. I would make the same adjustment could be made for the salt⏤ these cookies are über sweet by design. They’re balanced enough, but a little extra salt might counteract that hour-later sugar rush. Just a little, though.
final whip
Once the flour is incorporated, up the speed to medium-high once again and whip away! If you have a hand mixer, you’re welcome for the arm workout. This final whip will really beat the air into the batter and allow it to bake into that buttery, crispity-crackly consistency we’re after, so don’t cheap out here! You want your cookies to be moist and textured like a good brownie. In fact, mine were so well-whipped that they were just as gooey 3 days after they had been baked! I’m freezing them now, and have no doubt that they’ll remain delicious even weeks later.
bake / finishing touches
Next, spread the batter out onto a jelly roll pan (I used a 15.5′ x 10.5′), generously apply the reserved rainbow sprinkles on top, and bake using the very specific instructions I have offered up top. Remove from oven when the middle is set and the ends are crispy, and the cookies are golden in color! Do not overbake; they will lose moisture. After they are baked, cut the cookies out of the pan, working while they are still warm. And, sneak a few scraps for yourself!
Official recipe time.
recipe
Accidental Confetti Cookies
Equipment
- Oven
- Mixer with paddle attatchment
- Sheet pan
- Parchment paper
- Cooking spray
Ingredients
cookies
- 55 g softened butter or about 4 tbsp
- 60 g room-temperature vegetable shortening or 1/3 cup
- 250 g granulated sugar or 1 1/4 cup
- 50 g brown sugar or 3 tbsp, packed
- 3 large eggs
- 110 g buttermilk or 1/2 cup
- 65 g grapeseed oil or 1/3 cup
- 8 g vanilla extract or 2 tsp
- 245 g cake flour or 2 cups
- 6 g baking powder or 1 1/2 tsp
- 3 g salt or 3/4 tsp
- 75 g rainbow sprinkles! or 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300°F and spray baking tray with cooking spray. Line with parchment paper and spray again (for good measure).
- Cream the softened butter, room-temperature shortening, and both sugars until combined (if using a stand mixer, fit with the paddle attatchment and mix on medium-high), about a minute.
- Add in the eggs and beat thoroughly on high speed until the batter is thick and fluffy (about 4-6 minutes). The mixture should noticeably expand and become nearly white in color. This step is essential, so make sure you really give it your all!
- While the batter is whipping, whisk together the buttermilk, grapeseed oil, and vanilla. Shift to low speed and gradually pour in the wet ingredients, mixing well after each addition.
- Stir together the cake flour, baking powder, salt, and 50g of the rainbow sprinkles (yay!). Decrease mixer speed to low and add in the dry ingredients in three batches. After the wet and dry are incorporated, increase mixer speed to medium-high and whip once again for a good 3-5 minutes. Ensure that the dough is airy and light in color, but do not overmix.
- Pour the dough into the greased sheet pan and spread into an even layer using a spatula. Sprinkle the remaining 25g of rainbow sprinkles generously over the top (feel free to add more if you wish).
- Bake the cookies at 300°F for 30 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for another 10 minutes. They should develop a crinkly top, crisp golden edges, and a soft middle. Once the cookies are golden-brown and barely set, remove from oven and let cool in pan for 5 minutes.
- While the sheet of cookies is still warm and not yet hardened, go in with a circular cookie cutter and cut out 24 cookies. Alternatively, cut into squares for confetti blondies. Place on a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Enjoy!
Notes
- Recipe from www.SoCosmopoliteen.com
- See substitutions for other ingredient options.
- Make sure you whip the batter enough once the eggs are added! That is what gives these cookies their unique texture.
fin
So, there you have a foolproof recipe for ooey-gooey, super cute Accidental Confetti Cookies. I mean, just see how cute they are! And honestly, by pure coincidence, I think these bear a striking resemblance to Milk Bar’s cake truffles… perhaps I’ve uncovered their secret?! The world may never know…
Anyways, I hope you love these Accidental Confetti Cookies, and as always, please let me know if you give them a shot! Stay safe, and happy baking 🙂
I seriously hope you love this post,
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