It only takes four ingredients to throw together these Red Velvet Cake Mix Cookies! They're delightfully crinkled, totally delicious, and ready in under 30 minutes. Yum!

If you're looking for the perfect yet easy-to-make dessert for the holiday season, these Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies made with a simple boxed cake mix are the answer. Bursting with the nostalgic flavor of red velvet cake and that gorgeous color, these are always a hit with my family.

I love baking of course, but sometimes I am just not in the mood to mess up my entire kitchen. So on those days I like to cheat a bit. And one of my favorite baking hacks of all time is using a simple boxed cake mix to make delicious cookies!

I promise these taste just like "regular" cookies and no one is ever going to know you used a cake mix to make them! So let's get baking.

These Red Velvet Cookies are:

A fun, family friendly recipe.
Simple to make with just a few ingredients.
The easiest Christmas Cookies ever!
Or a perfect Valentine's Day dessert.
Moist and totally delicious.

Just 4 Ingredients!

You only need four ingredients to make these red velvet cookies, and most of them are probably already in your pantry. You'll need:

A box of red velvet cake mix. The 15.25 oz size is perfect!
2 Eggs
Vegetable Oil
Powdered Sugar - optional, but recommended.

And of course you will need a baking sheet! I also used a cookie cutter to shape my cookies into little hearts - because that's adorable. But obviously you can skip that step. See, this is the easiest cookie recipe ever, right?

Helpful Tips

Powdering the cookies. If you're having trouble getting the powder sugar to stick to the cookies, you can try lightly moistening your hands before rolling the cookies in the powder sugar.

Spread the cookies before baking. Before you bake the cookies, press each one lightly with your hand or the bottom side of a cup to help them spread out better.

Let them cool. If the cookies seem too soft to move when they come out of the oven, let them cool for a few minutes before transferring them onto a baking rack. If you move them too quickly, they will start to crumble!

Dealing with sticky dough. This cookie dough can be very sticky. If you find it is sticking to your hands too much to manage, chill the dough in the fridge for an hour and then continue.

Make it gluten free. You can make these gluten free by simply using a gluten free brand of cake mix.

Freezing the cookie dough. If you want to prepare your cookie dough in advance, you can freeze the cookie dough balls for 2-3 months. You will need to add a couple additional minutes to the baking time if you bake from frozen.

Storing the cookies. Baked cookies will stay fresh at room temperature for 3-5 days, when kept in a covered container.

Variations

Use any cake mix. This can be used as a base recipe for any kind of cake mix cookie. Just swap the red velvet for any flavor of your choice - like funfetti, strawberry, or vanilla.

Chocolate Chips: Fold a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips into the cookie dough for an extra kick of chocolate flavor.

Toffee Bits: Or try folding in chopped toffee bits for a tasty new spin!

Espresso Powder: Add 1 teaspoon of espresso powder to the cookie dough to give it a slightly more robust flavor.

Coconut Flakes: Sprinkle unsweetened coconut flakes over the top of the cookies before baking for a more tropical twist.

Cream Cheese Drizzle: Make a cream cheese glaze by combining 4 ounces of cream cheese with ¼ cup of powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Skip the powdered sugar and drizzle the glaze over the top of each cookie before serving for an extra rich and creamy flavor. It also mimics that cream cheese frosting from a traditional red velvet cake!

More Tasty Treats

If you love these Red Velvet Cake Mix Crinkle Cookies, be sure to check out these other delicious ideas:

Recipe