Grinch Crinkle Cookies

Grinch crinkle cookies are an easy cake mix cookie that’s soft and delicious! These fun treats have a huge red sprinkle in the center of the soft cookie that kids and adults love.

 

Grinch Crinkle Cookies

“How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” is a classic TV show that my family watches each year. It’s our favorite holiday movie. It’s just not Christmas without this Dr. Seuss classic.

My kids devoured these cookies as soon as they were cool enough to eat. You’ll be adding this to your holiday cookie recipes. They’re perfect for a cookie exchange.

What Is a Cake Mix Cookie?

Cake mix cookies are a great way to get a soft and delicious cookie with less work this holiday season. A boxed cake mix is used as the base, and you add regular pantry ingredients for a cookie that’s soft and delicious.

The bright green color perfectly matches the Grinch himself and the candy heart represents the Grinch’s heart. I love how the cookies are crinkled and cracked looking – representing how the Grinch’s own heart was cracked and broken.

You might also love our other cake mix cookies:

• lemon cake mix cookies
• strawberry cake mix cookies

Ingredients

• vanilla cake mix
• vegetable oil
• eggs
• green food coloring (about 1-2 drops)
• powdered sugar
• large red heart sprinkles (we used these)

How to Make Grinch Crinkle Cookies

• Preheat oven to 350
• Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silpat liner. Set aside.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine cake mix, oil and eggs until fully combined. Add in drops of green food coloring.
• Chill cookie dough for 10-20 minutes.
• Roll dough into 1-inch balls and dredge in confectioner’s sugar, coating all sides. Place balls on baking sheets.
• Please 1 large heart sprinkle in the middle of each ball, pressing it down to form the Grinch’s heart.
• Bake for 8-10 minutes until the bottoms are just golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes.
• Remove and let cool completely on cooling rack .
• Store in air-tight container.

Tips and Suggestions

• White cake mix – while you could easily substitute a yellow or butter cake mix for flavor, a box of white cake mix will leverage the green food coloring the best.
• cookie scoop – you can use a small cookie scoop to get scoop up the dough before rolling. This will ensure all the cookies are a similar size.
• sanding sugar – you can also roll the dough in a clear or green sanding sugar if you want an added crunch to the cookies
• heart sprinkles – be careful in choosing the sprinkles. There are a lot of small red hearts, but we really like the impact of the big hearts. (Added bonus tip: you can find these “jumbo” hearts on Amazon that we used, but you can also them in the store at Valentine’s day and save them for Christmas)
• red hots – replace the heart sprinkle with a red hot.

Do I Need to Use Green Gel Food Coloring?

Typically when baking and wanting color in your baked goods, we recommend using a gel food coloring. The colors are more vibrant and don’t fade when baked. For the Grinch cookies recipe, however, we used a store-bough traditional green food coloring. The cookies are light green in color, which closely matches the Grinch himself.

If you are using a gel food coloring, we suggest just a small amount so they don’t come out too green.

These festive Grinch cookies would be perfect for a Grinch movie night. Watch the original TV version, or do a movie night with the new Grinch movie.

We love making a big batch and serving these at Christmas time. It gets everyone into the holiday spirit. Make these Grinch Christmas cookies and give them as gifts to friends. It will certainly lift anyone’s spirits during the holidays.

Be sure to make our Valentine’s version of this crinkle cookie!

Want More Fun Christmas Recipes?

• Candy Cane Danishes
• Christmas Wreath Cookies
• Candy Cane Kiss Cookies