How long it takes: 5 minutes to prep, 25 to 30 minutes to bake Equipment you’ll need: mixing bowl, 9 x 9 inch baking pan, oven Servings: 9 Do you know someone who could use a rainbow in their life right now? Make them a batch of these easy blondies. Better yet, invite them to your house for a cup of coffee and a blondie. Send them home with a plate of blondies and a smile.
About Cake Mix Blondies
Seriously easy to make! You can whip them up in five minutes. Since a cake mix is the base of the recipe, you just need to add a few things to the bowl, stir everything up and pop them into the oven. Convenient. While I generally prefer making my baked goods from scratch, sometimes using a shortcut like a boxed cake mix is a life-saver. Who doesn’t have days when you just don’t have much time to bake but there’s guests coming over or the kids need a treat. A couple more quickie recipes that I fall back on are trail mix cookies, made with refrigerated cookie dough and a few add-ins, and peanut butter cookie bars, with only 5 ingredients.
Ingredient Notes
Yellow Cake Mix: Select a 15 oz. box of cake mix, not one of the smaller sized boxes like Jiffy. Just plain yellow cake mix is best. Vegetable Oil, Milk, Egg: Normal cake mix stuff, but you’ll use much less for these bars than you would use to make cake. Pure Vanilla Extract: Vanilla adds lots of flavor to these blondies. Rainbow/Confetti Sprinkles: Sprinkles (or jimmies) add lots of fun and color and are super easy to customize to match the occasion. If you love these festive cookie bars, be sure to try birthday cake pancakes which are adorned with lots of sprinkles.
How to make This Cookie Bar Recipe
Okay, this is how it goes. Get your oven preheating and your pan ready. Get a medium sized bowl out. Open the cake mix and empty it into the bowl. Add the oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Still with me? Mix everything up with a spoon. The mixture will be pretty stiff and not runny like cake batter. Mix in the sprinkles. Spread the mixture in the pan. If you want, sprinkle more rainbow sprinkles on top of the batter. Bake and cool completely (if you can wait that long) and cut into squares. Enjoy with a glass of cold milk or a cup of steaming coffee.
Recipe Variations
Select whatever color of sprinkle you want to celebrate any occasion. Red and green for Christmas, pastel for Easter, bright green for St. Patrick’s Day, pink or red for Valentine’s Day, school colors for game day, etc. Add chocolate. Substitute mini chocolate chips for the sprinkles. Increase the amount to ½ cup. Frost the blondies for an extra sweet treat and add even more sprinkles to the frosting. Try the frosting recipe in this cookie bar recipe. It works perfectly for cake mix blondies too. Make cookies instead. Try my funfetti cookies, an easy-to-make sugar cookie decorated with lots of sprinkles.
Make Ahead Ideas
Freeze the cookies. For easy lunchbox treats, make a batch of these blondies and freeze in individual resealable bags, all set to pop into lunches. They thaw quickly so they’ll be ready to eat by lunchtime.
Storage Suggestions
These festive bars store really well. After they’ve completely cooled, cut them into squares and arrange them in an airtight container, with waxed paper or parchment between layers. They’ll keep on the counter up to three days, in the fridge for a week, or in the freezer for three months.
Leftover Love
What to do with leftover blondies? Hmmmm, let me think. Is there such a thing? Probably not.
