Carrot Cake Crinkle Sandwich Cookies are showstoppers made with the help of a box mix, and a simple, delicious vanilla-cinnamon icing!
Cookies
5 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
15.25 oz box Carrot Cake Mix
Powdered sugar, about 1 cup
Icing
3 ounces cream cheese, preferably room temperature
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, preferably room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 375F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Set powdered sugar aside in a bowl.
In a large bowl, mix together butter, eggs, and carrot cake mix until uniform. Dough will be very soft but not sticky.
Roll dough into 1 tablespoon balls (about 1″ in diameter). Roll in powdered sugar and place 12 to a cookie sheet.
Bake for 7-9 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies look set but the cracks still look wet. Leave on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes before transferring cookies to a cooling rack.
While the cookies cool, beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add vanilla, cinnamon, and powdered sugar. Mix until completely smooth.
Match up pairs of cookies by size. Stack them on top of each other to see which one is the most stable and therefore should be the bottom cookie.
Put icing into a piping bag or ziptop bag with a small corner cut off. Pipe 1.5 – 2 teaspoons icing into the center of each bottom cookie and gently smush the top one on.
For best results, chill for about an hour in the fridge before serving. Store in the fridge for up to 3 days.
If you don’t have parchment paper or silicone mats, lightly grease the cookie sheets.
I turned my bottom cookies upside down so that both sides would have that crinkled look. If you would rather have stability, leave the bottom cookie right-side up before topping with icing.
The chilling is technically optional, but room-temperature icing tends to squish out the sides when the cookie is bitten into. An hour in the fridge or 30 minutes in the freezer takes care of that.
Keywords: cookies, crinkle cookies, carrot cake