Nothing says holiday baking like these beautiful red, festive Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies! A total cinch to make, they’re delicious, festive and a true classic holiday cookie. I love how the red “pops”, the texture of the crinkles and the sweet powdered sugar. If you’re looking for a cookie to bake this time of year, you must make these!
This recipe today is from Laura Vitale. Have you seen her on YouTube?! She’s amazing and makes cooking/baking so approachable. Her recipe for red velvet crinkles are actually Red Velvet Crinkle Kisses – she adds a chocolate kiss on top. I was just looking for traditional red velvet crinkles and this recipe looked killer, and not surprisingly, it’s a keeper.
easy tips for red velvet crinkle cookies
Let’s talk about this cookie dough for a second. It’s rich, flavorful and very sticky! Once you’ve made the cookie dough you’ll see what I mean. I highly recommend you chill the dough in the refrigerate before you go to bake these cookies. Chilling the dough will make the dough easier to work with and it’ll hold it’s shape better when they bake in the oven. These cookies bake up into beautiful round, puffy cookies with fantastic texture, so don’t skip this step! Be patient and chill the cookie dough!
The first couple of times I made these cookies I saw that the powdered sugar was pretty much dissolving into the cookie as they baked. No good. The whole appearance of this cookie relies on the contrast of powdered sugar and the red hue of the cookie, so we can’t have barely-there powdered sugar. The quick solution to this: double roll each ball of cookie dough in powdered sugar before you bake them. That’s it! There isn’t a fancy way to do this, just completely roll each ball of cookie dough in powdered sugar, lightly shake of any excess sugar and then simply roll in sugar once more. The powdered sugar will stick beautifully and will help emphasis the crinkles we want to see.
Pin this image to save this recipe for later, that way you can easily access the recipe and come back to it when you’re ready to bake these beautiful, festive cookies!

Red Velvet Crinkles
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/3 cup All Purpose Flour
- 3 tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1/4 cup Unsalted Butter room temperature
- 2/3 cup Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Red Food Coloring
- Powdered Sugar for rolling
Instructions
- In a bowl combine your dry ingredients; flour, cocoa powder, baking powder & salt. Give it a quick whisk and set aside.
- In a large bow cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add in eggs and vanilla and mix together until combined. Slowly add in dry ingredients and mix together until thoroughly combined. Slowly add in red food coloring a few drops at a time while mixing until a deep, bright red hue is achieved.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or up to overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with non stick cooking spray. Pour powdered sugar onto a plate or in a shallow bowl. Scoop chilled cookie dough in small balls and roll in powdered sugar. Once you've rolled all the cookie dough balls in powdered sugar repeat this step one more time, roll in the powdered sugar once more to get a good coating of powdered sugar on each cookie.
- Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool for 2 to 3 minutes before you transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Serve immediately or store in a airtight container for later.
Notes