Birthday Cake Shortbread Cookie Bites are bite size cookies filled with rainbow sprinkles. They are tender, buttery, and taste like birthday cake.
These adorable birthday cake shortbread cookie bites are the perfect finger food for your next birthday party. Or, just because. Do we need a reason to make rainbow sprinkle cookies?
You'll love this recipe because you only need six ingredients, most of which you already have on hand. What makes these shortbread cookies special is the blend of vanilla extract and almond extract.
If you've never had a shortbread cookie before, these cookies are tender, buttery, and dense, since they contain no leavening agents. They are excellent served with coffee or tea.
Ingredients
For this recipe, you'll need all-purpose flour, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract, and rainbow sprinkles.
Sprinkles can be substituted with mini chocolate chips. I find rainbow jimmies are best used in baked goods, because the colors don't run when mixed into the batter.
Nonpareils (tiny round sprinkles) are not my favorite choice because their colors do tend to run when mixed into the dough.
Room temperature butter
Room temperature butter is needed to make these cookies because it will easily incorporate with the other ingredients and make a creamy, consistent texture.
This also ensure that your cookies will bake up evenly and perfectly every time.
Room temperature butter should not be substituted with cold butter or melted butter.
Properly measured flour
Because shortbread cookies contain so few ingredients, I find it even more important to properly measure your flour for this recipe. This is the most common mistake readers make when preparing any of my shortbread cookies, so I include this tip with every recipe now.
To properly measure flour, scoop your flour using a spoon into your measuring cup. Then, use a knife to level off the surface of the flour. This ensures you are adding just the right amount of flour to your cookie recipe.
If you scoop your flour using the measuring scoop, it compacts flour into the measuring cup and adds up to 25% extra flour to your recipe. If you've ever had cookies that didn't spread, or felt too cakey and thick, this is likely the reason why.
Birthday Cake Shortbread Cookie Bites
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 2 ⅓ cups all purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons rainbow jimmies
Instructions
- In a bowl, cream together butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and almond extract.
- In a separate bowl, sift (or whisk) flour. Add flour to butter mixture and mix until a dough forms (dough may be slightly crumbly, but holds together when pinched together). Add rainbow jimmies and mix until just combined.
- Press dough into a parchment lined 9x13 baking pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Pull dough and parchment out of baking pan. Slice dough into about ¾" rows across and down to create squares. Place squares about 1 inch apart on parchment lined baking sheet (it will take 2 or more sheets to bake all cookies).
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until cookies begin to lightly brown around the edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 2-3 minutes before removing from sheet to cool completely.
Equipment Recommendations
Notes
- Your cookies will keep for 5-7 days in a sealed container. To help keep cookies fresh, you can place a slice of bread in the container with the cookies. Replace the bread slice as needed.
- You can keep raw cookie dough in the refrigerator for 3 days. Cookie dough and baked cookies freeze well, up to 3 months in a sealed plastic container or freezer bag. Allow frozen dough to thaw for up to 10 minutes on the baking sheet before baking, or add 1-2 minutes to the baking time.
- It is important to properly measure flour for this recipe. Spoon flour into measuring cup and level off with a knife. Scooping flour directly with measuring cup will compact flour into the cup, adding 25% more flour to your dough.
I followed the directions EXACTLY and as I was slicing the dough it broke apart. What a waste of ingredients! It seems like a 9x13 pan makes them WAY TOO THIN.
Hi E., I'm sorry to hear that your cookies didn't turn out! The dough should be between 1/4 and 1/2 inch in thickness when pressed into the pan. I'm not sure what would cause the dough to break apart, it may have needed to be pressed into the pan more firmly. It's hard to say what went wrong without being in the kitchen with you.
If you still have the dough, it can also be formed into a log and sliced, or rolled with a rolling pin and sliced with a knife or cookie cutters, if the 9x13 pan method isn't working.
I am going to make these cookies for an office worker's birthday to make it easier and safer to share during these times. They look adorable and will be perfect to package up in little bundles for my coworkers. I have started weighing my flour vs. using a measuring device because it is ALWAYS consistent, never any guesswork, because too much (or too little) flour CAN ruin a recipe.
Hi Marla, I hope you enjoy the cookies! I agree, weighing ingredients is much easier and more accurate! It's on my to-do list to add measurements in grams to my baking recipes.
CAn you make this without the rainbow jimmies? I
Yes, they can be made plain!
I just came here to say - I’ve never heard anyone else call them “jimmies”! I thought this was a New England thing! 😆 I’m looking forward to trying them.
I think jimmies are the official name, I like to be specific just in case! I hope you enjoy the cookies 🙂
Did anyone else find these cookies to be very bland? I feel like salted butter should be used or a small amount of salt should be added. Thoughts?
Hi Kelly, you're welcome to use salted butter instead, or add 1/4 teaspoon of salt to your dough while mixing.
The taste is okay but the dough crumbles. I made exactly to the recipe. I believe the recipe needs a binder to help the dough be more binding. The next time I will add a binder to the recipe.
Hi Gigi, I'm sorry to hear that your shortbread cookies did not turn out! Shortbread cookies are indeed made with only flour, sugar, and butter, no additional ingredients to bind them together.
At what point did the dough become too crumbly compared to the pictures in the post? Your dough will look crumbly when you're done mixing, but should press into a pan and hold together as shown. If the dough was too crumbly to press into the pan, maybe too much flour was added.
I hope you enjoy the next batch!
My cookies didnt stay in the square shape when i baked them, though I followed the recipe exactly. Did i press the dough too thin?
Hi Sara, if the cookies spread too much on the baking sheet, it could be because the dough was too warm. Or, if you used a greased baking sheet instead of parchment or a silicone baking mat, this can cause cookies to spread more.