Easy Red Velvet Cookies
Simple and delicious! Our Easy Red Velvet Cookies are super soft and everything you want from a red velvet cookie with a sweet sugar coating.
Admittedly, I don’t have that big of a sweet tooth. For desserts, give me a cheese plate over anything sweet or chocolaty. With that said, when I do want something sweet, I really want it and when the red velvet craving hits, our Easy Red Velvet Cookies are not only simple to make, but they absolutely hit the spot! They’re incredibly soft with that signature ‘velvet’ crumb and cocoa and vanilla flavor!
Ingredients Needed
- All Purpose Flour – This is the best flour to use, but you can also use a gluten-free 1:1 four, Bob’s Red Mill is our favorite!
- Sugars – Both white and brown are used for the dough and then confectioner’s sugar is used to finish the cookies with.
- Cocoa Powder – A key ingredient for red velvet cookies.
- Butter and Salt – Unsalted is preferred but you can of course use salted and then reduce the added sugar.
- Milk – Just a touch is all that’s needed.
- Egg – Just one!
- Baking Powder – The leavening agent for these soft red velvet cookies.
- Vanilla Extract – Have you made your own, yet?
Tools For This Recipe
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Hand Mixer – This is the easiest way to cream the butter and sugar, but you can use a wooden spoon and do it by hand, too. It’ll just take quite a bit of elbow grease.
Cookie Sheets– We use two baking sheets for all of these cookies.
Mixing Bowls – We love these bowls
Kitchen Scale – This is one of our most used kitchen tools! Measuring flour and other dry ingredients is key for ensuring proper measurements.
Super Easy to Make
Cream that butter and sugar, add the egg and vanilla, and red food coloring before adding the whisked dry ingredients to form a super sticky dough. Let that dough chill for 30-60 minutes so that it’ll be more workable.
Once chilled, roll that dough out into nice little balls and give them a roll in some powdered sugar.
Then they’re ready to be baked into these super soft, moist, Easy Red Velvet Cookies! So SO soft and delicious, they’re like a handheld bite of the classic cake.
Super soft. Super simple to make. Incredibly delightful.
Recipe Tips
Not only do you want to chill your dough to make it easier to handle, but it also will ensure that you don’t get flat cookies because the chilling allows for the fats to cool and prevents the cookies from spreading too quickly.
When the dough is still a bit tacky or sticky, just be sure to clean your hands often. The dough is easier to handle with hands clean of dough.
You can go a little more subtle, or you can go all in on red! You choose! For our Easy Red Velvet Cookies, we use about 1/2 tablespoon, but you can use up to a full tablespoon for a super bright vibrant red color.
You can either give those dough balls a single roll in the powdered sugar or for an even more crinkle like look, give them an extra roll to ensure a thick coating of sugar. We prefer just a single roll, but you do you!
You Also Might Like
- Thin Mints From Scratch
- Chai Spiced Snickerdoodles
- Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
- Andes Stuffed Sugar Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Soft and delicious Easy Red Velvet Cookies!
Enjoy! As always, if you make this recipe or any of my others, I love to hear what you think! Leave a comment below, email me, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
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Easy Red Velvet Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 2/3 cups all purpose flour 219 g
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 33 g
- 1 1/ teaspoon baking powder 5 g
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar packed, 113 g
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar 105 g
- 1 egg room temperature
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 tablespoon red food coloring up to 1 tablespoon
- 1/8-1/4 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Mix Dry Ingredients: In a medium-sized bowl, mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
- Cream Butter and Sugar: In a large bowl add the butter, cubed. Use a hand-held mixer and beat the butter on high until creamy. Turn to medium speed and beat in the sugars. Then add the egg, milk, and vanilla extract and continue to beat until combined. Once combined, add food coloring and mix again.
- Create Dough: Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix until a sticky dough is formed.
- Chill: Cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 days in the fridge.
- Preheat Oven: When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you've chilled the dough longer than 24 hrs, let the dough sit at room temperature for 45 minutes before baking.
- Roll Out Dough: Line baking sheets with parchment paper and scoop out a spoonful of dough. Roll into a ball and place on the baking sheet leaving 1-2 inches of space.
- Roll in Sugar: Add confectioner's sugar to a small bowl and roll dough balls at least once in the sugar. Bake for 10-11 minutes. Cookies may not spread much, so while they are still warm, lightly press down on them to create crinkles in the top.
- Bake: Add cookie trays to the oven and bake for 10-11 minutes.
- Cool: Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack.
i have a very big sweet tooth, we can definitely exchange our savory treats with sweet.
Deal!
Congratulations on the reveal! Red velvet cookies are the best 🙂 Was trying to figure out something yum and easy to bake for tomorrow and now I know what I am making! Thanks for sharing it
Thanks so much! 😀
I love red velvet everything so these look so good. I will have to give them a try…and if people are lucky I might even share LOL.
Haha! I made them thinking we would share too… didn’t happen. Oops! 😉
I love how simple and chewy these are! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Thanks, Shandi!
I love how easy these are to make