Sugar Cookies with Sprinkles (Drop Style)

I vividly remember being in grade school and having to choose between chocolate chip, peanut butter, or sugar cookies to round out your otherwise drab cafeteria meal. I usually shuffled through the three options based on my mood that day, but I distinctly remember being pleasantly surprised by how soft, chewy, buttery, and just downright delicious the sugar cookies were. Well, this recipe reminds me of those sugar cookies. And I added sprinkles just to make them even more nostalgic and festive. AND they’re drop cookies, so no need to worry about rolling out and cutting cookies like in our cut-out cookie recipe.

Your grocery list

Dairy

Unsalted butter
Large egg

Baking & Pantry Items

All purpose flour
Baking powder
Kosher salt
Granulated sugar
Vanilla extract
Almond extract (optional)
Sprinkles

Equipment you’ll need

Cookie (or baking) sheet
Ice cream scoop
Stand or hand mixer
Mixing bowls
Measuring spoons/cups
Parchment paper
Wire racks for cooling

The process of making drop-style sugar cookies

Make the dough. Preparing the cookie dough is easy. Whisk the dry ingredients in one bowl and beat wet ingredients in another (or in the bowl of your stand mixer). Combine the dry with the wet until they form a smooth dough.
- The dough will be much easier to mix if the ingredients are room temperature, so make sure to set the butter and egg out at least an hour in advance.
- Sugar cookies get all of their flavor from butter and vanilla extract, so don’t skimp on those ingredients.

ingredients for making drop sugar cookie dough — The drop cookie dough will be thick and slightly sticky, but you will be able to roll them into ball.
**(Image credit: Lena Bullock | Mobile Soul)**

Chilling the cookie dough is another non-negotiable. These drop sugar cookies have a good amount of butter in them and the colder the cookie dough, the less excessive spread you have to worry about. The cookie dough can get a little hard after an hour in the refrigerator, so I recommend rolling the dough into balls before chilling.
- I bake mine straight out of the fridge and the cookies back into soft, thick, buttery pillows. If you like your cookies a bit thinner (than pictured), press the dough balls down a bit before baking.