Can Jell-O Pudding Mix Make a Great Cookie?

Jell-O vanilla pudding mix is the secret ingredient in great banana bread. But can it make a great cookie?

I keep my pantry stocked with a box of vanilla pudding mix at all times because it’s the secret ingredient in my favorite banana bread recipe. It adds robust vanilla flavor and moisture that lasts for days; I’ve yet to find a banana bread recipe that’s comparable. So when I read the recipe for sprinkle cookies on the side of the Jell-O box, I figured I’d give it a go, given the pudding mix’s proven track record when it comes to enhancing baked goods.

The recipe itself is really short (it does, after all, have to fit on the side of a small Jell-O box). It entails creaming butter and sugar and separately combining flour and baking soda. From there, you add an egg to the butter and sugar mixture and combine, then shake the powdered contents of the Jell-O pudding mix into the wet ingredients.

The cookie dough, at this stage, was extremely yellow — the color of Big Bird — thanks to the pudding mix. But it smelled buttery and sweet, as all good cookie doughs do, so I trusted the process. I next added the flour mixture slowly, continually whisking with my electric beater. The cookie dough, however, wasn’t really coming together. Instead, it was sandy and clumpy. I decided to try incorporating the dough with a rubber spatula. That helped somewhat, but the dough remained crumbly. The final stage of the recipe, before the actual baking, calls for folding in rainbow sprinkles. Since I only had Valentine’s Day sprinkles in my pantry, my cookies twinkled with pink, red, and white hearts instead of a burst of confetti. Still cute, but if you’re going for a birthday party theme, be sure to grab some rainbow sprinkles at the store.

As I folded in the sprinkles, the cookie dough remained uncooperative. It felt like kinetic sand in my hands. Part of me wondered if the dough would have benefited from a rest or chill time in the fridge to allow the pudding mix and flour mixture to truly absorb the wet ingredients. After all, pudding mix is mostly cornstarch and vanilla flavor; if it doesn’t have time to set, I thought, perhaps it would just remain crumbly.

Since I wanted to stay true to the recipe I forwent the chill time and got to baking. Because the dough was still so sandy, it required me to pack it down into the cookie scoop in an attempt to force the cookies to hold their shape. I felt like I was playing with sand castle toys and did my best to ensure there were no air bubbles, since they would make the half-spheres of dough collapse. Given these structural issues, I worried the cookies would merely flatten and separate in the oven, or be too sandy to even enjoy.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. The cookies took 10 minutes to bake and came out golden and perfumey with the scent of vanilla. Honestly, they looked good! The sprinkles were whimsical and the the unnerving yellow hue of the dough had softened to a more appealing, less artificial shade.

I’m happy to report that the cookies did not fall apart or disintegrate. In fact, just like the banana bread, they were supremely moist in the center, with a crisp exterior. But the taste was the ultimate test, and it was very sweet. Halfway through my first cookie, I could feel the sugar in the back of my throat, the kind of sweetness that sucks the moisture out of your mouth. The cookie was so sweet that I didn’t think a glass of milk would help much. One was more than enough.

I think the problem is that because the pudding mix itself is already so sweet; it makes the additional ¾ cup of sugar the recipe calls for redundant. Paired with the sprinkles, which are ultimately just sugar crystals, it makes for a cloying cookie. Also, the recipe doesn’t call for a pinch of salt; adding that, or even topping the cookies with flaky salt, could help.

The cookie isn’t all bad, though. I tried a second one the following day, after letting them sit out all night. It retained both its moisture and crispy edges, and I found that pairing it with a strongly brewed cup of tea was a good way to mitigate the sweetness.

Would I make these cookies again? Probably not in their current iteration. I think I’d rather just make a sugar cookie base from scratch, instead of relying on the syrupy sweetness of the pudding mix. However, I could see a chocolate pudding mix cookie faring better, if the cookie dough were paired with enough bitter cocoa powder and swirled with dark chocolate chips. While I still believe that baking with pudding mix is a good hack worthy of further experimentation, and that success is possible, these sprinkle cookies unfortunately missed the mark.