Birthday Cake Mix Sandwich Cookies Recipe

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Birthdays are occasions that call for extra-special desserts, and though a tried-and-true birthday cake is the go-to, it's certainly not the only option. These pretty birthday cake mix sandwich cookies, from recipe developer Jessica Morone, are perfectly festive for birthdays but come together without the fuss of having to decorate an entire cake. Plus, the "cookie" parts of the sandwich are actually made from boxed cake mix, meaning that these treats capture all of the flavor essence of a classic cake, just in convenient handheld cookie sandwich form.

There's another added perk to using boxed cake mix in this recipe, of course, which is that these sandwich cookies are incredibly simple to whip up. As Morone says, "I love these because they are really fun looking, taste just like birthday cake, and are really easy to make." Despite boxed cake mix making up the cookie sandwich portion of the treat, there's still a nice homemade feel from the cream cheese frosting in the middle, a richly sweet and subtly tangy frosting that would work equally as well with a plethora of other cake flavors. 

For the sandwich cookie portion of this recipe, the bulk of what you need comes in a standard box of vanilla cake mix. You'll also need melted and cooled butter, a couple of eggs, vanilla extract, and colorful sprinkles, since the theme is birthday cake after all.

The frosting, despite being completely homemade, also boasts a short ingredient list. To make the cream cheese frosting, you'll need powdered sugar, softened unsalted butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract, and a little bit of milk.

Make the cookies: In a large bowl, mix together the cake mix, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla extract until well combined.

Add the sprinkles to the bowl and mix until just combined. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Use a medium cookie scoop to scoop 20 balls of cookie dough onto the baking sheets.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10–12 minutes, until the cookies are puffy and the edges are golden brown. Let the cookies cool completely.

Add the frosting ingredients to a large bowl and use an electric or stand mixer to beat everything together until smooth.

Spread or pipe the icing onto the bottoms of half of the cooled cookies.

Top with the other half of the cookies, gently pressing them together.

Roll the sides of the cookies in additional sprinkles, if desired. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 4 days in an airtight container.

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This cookie sandwich recipe is incredibly customizable, both in terms of the cookies and the frosting filling. For starters, since the cookies are made from boxed cake mix, you can essentially use any flavor or type of boxed mix that your heart desires. "Lemon, strawberry, or red velvet cake mix would all go really well with the cream cheese frosting," Morone suggests. Also, if you aren't a fan of the birthday cake theme, you can still follow this recipe exactly as written, using vanilla cake mix as the base and simply omitting the sprinkles. Or, opt for a different kind of sprinkles — chocolate sprinkles would work great here and add a different flavor, though you can get creative with the sprinkle colors to fit whatever theme you're going for.

You can also easily switch up or upgrade the cream cheese frosting. Morone suggests adding some cocoa powder to make chocolate frosting, in which case you might be inclined to use boxed yellow cake mix for a take on classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Another way to incorporate unique flavors into the frosting is by way of extract, so consider swapping out the vanilla for flavors like almond or lemon.

Refrigerating cookie dough before baking is not an uncommon practice in the world of baking, mostly because it helps the cookies keep their shape in the oven and prevents excessive spreading. As it turns out, a similar principle applies to those cookies that are made from boxed cake mix, too. Morone explains that refrigerating the cookie batter before baking, even for only 30 minutes, will help prevent the cookies from spreading in the oven, "which helps them hold their shape and stay nice and thick."

Also, anyone who has ever worked with boxed cake mix before knows that, once you add in the wet ingredients, you've got a pretty sticky batter on your hands. "The dough is pretty sticky when you make it, so refrigerating it makes it much less sticky and easy to scoop out and shape," Morone says. So, yes, it really is important not to skip the refrigeration step, otherwise, you might end up with cookies that spread out too much or those that are different sizes, which wouldn't work so well when it comes time to turn these into cookie sandwiches.

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