Gluten-Free Sprinkle Sugar Cookies
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Let’s make Gluten-Free Sprinkle Sugar Cookies! These soft gluten-free sugar cookies with sprinkles are so cute! They’re perfect for celebrating holidays, birthdays, and special occasions.
These gluten-free sprinkle sugar cookies are as delicious as they are joyful and charming. Their happy, colorful look along with their gorgeous texture and signature flavor make them an absolute joy to make and eat.
I love that they look a little more fun and fancy, but they’re INCREDIBLY easy to make. Like, it’s almost silly.
Here’s what you’ll need to make these soft gluten-free sugar cookies with sprinkles…
Gather Your Ingredients
One of the best things about these gluten-free sprinkle sugar cookies? They start with SIMPLE ingredients! Let’s take a look:
- Softened Butter. The base of these cookies is a basic sugar cookie dough. For this, we’ll start with butter which lends beautiful soft texture and flavor, along with some…
- Sugar. The granulated sugar and butter will get creamed to be light and fluffy. It makes a perfect blank canvas for color (sprinkles) and flavor (coming right up!).
- Eggs. To bind the ingredients together and give you those nice slightly chewy edges with soft middles.
- Vanilla. Enter: flavor! Use the best-tasting vanilla extract you can, as most birthday cake cookies, funfetti cookies, and sprinkle cookies get their flavor from plenty of vanilla.
- Almond Extract. Technically optional if you’re not a fan, but pretty classic in a good sugar cookie or birthday-cake flavored recipe. I love what it adds!
- Baking Powder. Gotta get that puff!
- Salt. To balance the flavor. Don’t skip it!
- Gluten-Free Measure-For-Measure Flour. We highly recommend King Arthur Measure For Measure Gluten-Free Flour, but if you use another gluten-free flour blend, be sure it contains xanthan gum, or this sprinkle sugar cookies recipe won’t turn out properly. Do not substitute almond flour, coconut flour, or oat flour here.
- Sprinkles. You can’t make sprinkle sugar cookies without sprinkles! You’ll want to use jimmies (the oblong/rectangle/cylinder shaped sprinkles) or quins (flat round circles or shaped sprinkles). These sprinkles won’t bleed their color into the dough and hold up well when baked. They’re the classic shapes for funfetti cake and work well in gluten-free funfetti cookies, too!
Key Step: Measure Properly!
One trick for the perfect gluten-free sprinkle sugar cookies is to weigh the flour with a digital scale, when possible. If you don’t have one, make sure to use the scoop and level method to spoon flour INTO The measuring cup, rather than scooping WITH the measuring cup, which packs in too much flour. This will help you get a nice, soft dough and help your cookies spread properly.
How To Make Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies With Sprinkles, Step By Step
As always, you can find the full recipe, with ingredient amounts, detailed instructions, and tips in the recipe card below.
- Cream Butter & Sugar. In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter and sugar. Beat together with a paddle attachment or hand mixer 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture is smooth and cohesive.
- Mix In Wet Ingredients. Add eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate each egg before adding the next. Then, Add vanilla and almond extract and beat to blend in.
- Add Dry Ingredients. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add baking powder, salt, and flour. Mix until the flour is mostly mixed in.
- Mix In Sprinkles. Add sprinkles and stir or beat on low to incorporate the sprinkles into the dough. (The dough will be thick and sticky at this point. You may prefer to finish with a spatula.)
- Chill Dough. Cover the dough and refrigerate to chill dough 30 minutes, while you preheat the oven.
- Preheat & Prep. While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Scoop & Roll Dough. When the oven is preheated, remove chilled dough from the refrigerator. Scoop or roll dough into 1.5” balls (i use a medium cookie scoop). If desired, roll the tops of the cookie dough balls in more sprinkles before placing on a baking sheet.
- Bake Cookies at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until set around the edges and just underdone in the center. Cool 2 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack.
- Serve & Store. Enjoy once the cookies are cooled completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature 2-3 days or freeze up to 2 months.
Mix It Up! Make Your Sprinkle Sugar Cookies Work For Holidays & Celebrations all year long
- For Birthdays. I love using multi-color jimmies (pictured in these photos) that remind people of birthday cakes. Or, you can pick sprinkles in the birthday person’s favorite colors.
- For Valentine’s Day. Try heart-shaped quins sprinkles or red, pink, and white jimmies.
- For St. Patrick’s Day. Go for green! Pick shamrock quins or green and white jimmies.
- For Mardi Gras. You can totally make sprinkle cookies for mardi gras! Use yellow, purple, and green sprinkles to mimic king cake.
- For Easter. Think pastels. Use natural-colored jimmies in softer colors, or pick up some pastel jimmies.
- For 4th Of July. Red, white, and blue! Use jimmies or find some star-shaped quins for an extra festive look. You can even mix + match the jimmies + stars!
- For Halloween. Get spooky with oranges, blacks, greens, whites, and purples. Or pick up some jack-o-lantern, ghost, or bat quins.
- For Hanukkah. Celebrate with blue and white!
- For Christmas. Use classic red & green or red & white for a festive look!
Gluten-Free? Make sure to use gluten-free sprinkles! We Like Chef’s Select, Judee’s, and Sweetapolita brands.
FAQ + Tips For The Best Gluten-Free Sprinkle Sugar Cookies
What Kind Of Sprinkles Do You Use For Sprinkle Sugar Cookies? For best results, I recommend jimmies or quins. They won’t bleed their color and they tend to give you the look most people are going for with gluten-free funfetti cookies or gluten-free sprinkle cookies. Learn more in our Sprinkles 101 post!
Do You Put Sprinkles On Sugar Cookies Before Or After Baking? For sprinkle sugar cookies, you’ll add the sprinkles directly to the dough. You also have the option to dip the tops of the dough balls into additional sprinkles to coat the tops of the cookies as they bake. If you only want to use sprinkles for decorating with frosting, wait until the cookies have cooled and you’ve frosted them to add the sprinkles.
Can You Freeze Sprinkle Sugar Cookie Dough? Yes! You can freeze sprinkle sugar cookie dough! Prepare the dough as directed, all the way until after you chill the dough for 30 minutes. Scoop the dough into balls and place on a baking sheet in a single layer, in a freezer-safe bag in a single layer, or a freezer-safe container in a single layer. Freeze at least 1 hour or until no longer tacky. Then, you can transfer the dough balls to one bag or a large container together in the freezer. (You want to let them freeze a bit first individually so the dough balls don’t all stick together.) Learn more about how to freeze cookie dough & bake cookies from the freezer in this post!
3 Tricks To Make Your Cookies Perfectly Round
- Chill The Dough. Don’t skip the chill time! It’ll improve the flavor and texture, but it will also help control the spread of your cookies during baking. (Chilled dough spreads less than warm or room-temperature dough)
- Use A Cookie Scoop. A medium cookie scoop like this is my go-to. It’ll help you get evenly-sized cookies, and help compact the dough just enough to spread well.
- Coax Them Into Circles While They’re Warm. Even the most carefully chilled and measured cookie dough sometimes goes rogue in the oven! To fix wobbly or wonky-shaped cookies, coax freshly baked cookies into perfect circles use a large round cookie cutter when they’re fresh from the oven. Gently move the cookie cutter around in a swirl/circular motion to just coax the edges back into a circle.
🌟 Did You Make This Recipe?
Tell me all about it! Leave a star rating below when you try our Gluten-Free Sprinkle Sugar Cookies recipe. I can’t wait to hear how it goes!
Gluten-Free Sprinkle Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks, 170 grams)
- 1 ½ cup granulated sugar (300 grams)
- 2 eggs (ideally room temperature)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 ½ cups gluten-free measure-for-measure flour* (300 grams)
- 1/3-1/2 cup sprinkles (jimmies or quins, plus more for topping if desired)
Instructions
- Cream Butter & Sugar. In a large bowl or stand mixer, combine butter and sugar. Beat together with a paddle attachment or hand mixer 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture is smooth and cohesive.
- Mix In Wet Ingredients. Add eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate each egg before adding the next. Then, Add vanilla and almond extract and beat to blend in.
- Add Dry Ingredients. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add baking powder, salt, and flour. Mix until the flour is mostly mixed in.
- Mix In Sprinkles. Add sprinkles and stir or beat on low to incorporate the sprinkles into the dough. (The dough will be thick and sticky at this point. You may prefer to finish with a spatula.)
- Chill Dough. Cover the dough and refrigerate to chill dough 30 minutes, while you preheat the oven.
- Preheat & Prep. While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Scoop & Roll Dough. When the oven is preheated, remove chilled dough from the refrigerator. Scoop or roll dough into 1.5” balls (i use a medium cookie scoop). If desired, roll the tops of the cookie dough balls in more sprinkles before placing on a baking sheet.
- Bake Cookies at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until set around the edges and just underdone in the center. Cool 2 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.
- Serve & Store. Enjoy once the cookies are cooled completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature 2-3 days or freeze up to 2 months.
Notes
- Use The Right Sprinkles! This recipe works best with jimmies or quins sprinkles If you use nonpareils (the tiny ball-shaped sprinkles), they’ll just melt & bleed their color. Jimmies and Quins will hold their shape & color!
- Gluten-Free Flour. We highly recommend King Arthur Measure-For-Measure Gluten-Free Flour. If you use another brand, be sure it contains xanthan gum or your cookies will not turn out properly. Oat flour, coconut flour, almond flour, etc. will not work in this recipe.
- Measure Carefully! For the best texture & flavor, make sure to weight the flour or use the scoop and level method to spoon the flour into the measuring cup (rather than using your measuring cup to scoop flour, which packs extra flour into the recipe)
Video
Find the recipe:
sweetsandthankyou.com/gluten-free-sprinkle-cookies/Originally published October 2021. Updated with extra notes and tips, additional photos, and video and republished May 2025.
How long do you bake these for? We t seems like the last step is missing.
Kim – I’m so sorry about that! I don’t know why the rest of the steps weren’t showing. I think it’s sorted!
I made these for Christmas. They are so good, I can’t stop eating them! These will definitely make it into the cookie rotation.
I’m SO HAPPY to hear that! Wonderful!!!
Can you shape these using a cookie cutter like regular sugar cookies? Thanks!
Hi Kirsten! These are drop-style cookies, so they won’t work well for cut-outs as written. I’m hoping to share a great cut-out cookie option soon!
I make these dairy and gluten free and they are always a huge hit. Even those who think they won’t like them (cause of the dietary changes) rave about them. I love that I always have the ingredients available. Sometimes I ice them with a dairy free sprinkle buttercream.
Made these tonight (8/13/2033) so easy and so delicious. Just like the Publix deli cookies. Absolutely amazing will be going into the regular rotation for treat. Thanks for sharing
LOVE THIS review Maddi! Thank you so much for taking the time to share. I’m so glad you loved them!
I absolutely love these cookies and so does my toddler. Thank you!!
Aren’t they so fun! My kids LOVE them!
oh my goodness my GF grandson just can’t stop raving about how great these cookies are! thank you for a wonderful recipe and a happy Nana moment!
I am SO HAPPY to hear that! Hooray!!!
These were really good. The sprinkles made them so fun.
Right!? Sprinkles make everything better! (THANK YOU for your review Melissa!)
Can I use M&Ms in these? instead of sprinkles?
I’d recommend my M&M cookie recipe instead if you want to do m&ms!
I love how adaptable these cookies are! They can easily be adjusted to fit any holiday. But the sprinkles add a bit of magic on their own! Holiday or not.