Name: Circus Animal Cookies at Home
Yield: 20

Circus Animal Cookies are soft cake-batter cookies topped with a big swirl of cream cheese frosting, tons of sprinkles, and a frosted animal cookie. a reliable!

author’s note

The One Cookie I’d Pick Over All the Others

My mom never bought frosted animal cookies growing up, so the few times I got them from friends felt extra special. I was obsessed with everything about them: the flavor, the colors, the sprinkles, all of it.

And honestly? Even as an adult, they continue to have a pull on me. I STILL love them. So naturally, I had to turn that nostalgia into a fun, bakery-style cookie.

BIG claim incoming because I truly love all my cookie recipes and pour my heart into perfecting them, but I think this might be a reliable cookie on my entire site.

These Circus Animal Cookies are the reliable mix of from-scratch and nostalgic. A soft and chewy cake-batter-style cookie, a thick swirl of cream cheese frosting, lots of sprinkles, and of course, a classic frosted animal cookie on top.

Sweet, fun, and just the right amount of over-the-top.

Ingredients In Circus Animal Cookies

To truly channel the animal circus crackers from my childhood into these cookies, we use nonpareil sprinkles. Nonpareil colors bleed into the cookie dough, so stir the batter as little as possible, being gentle as you mix.
A quality cake mix makes a huge difference for the base cookie in this recipe. I highly recommend Betty Crocker® Super Moist cake mixes (not sponsored). As far as the flavor of the mix, It is worth Party Rainbow Chip. If you can’t find that particular mix, a close second we like in these cookies is Betty Crocker® Super Moist yellow cake mix.
It is worth an instant-vanilla pudding mix for this recipe, not the cook-and-serve pudding mixes or the sugar-free/low-sugar versions. Neither will work properly in these cookies.

Circus Animal Cookie Tips

Chill the dough. The dough needs time to chill so the butter can re-solidify and the pudding mixture can be fully absorbed. This will ensure you don’t have flat (and less-flavorful) cookies. I don’t recommend chilling the dough for more than 3-4 hours, as it begins to dry out.
Measure carefully. The most important measurements are the flour and cake mix. If you press a measuring cup into a bag of flour (or cake mix) you are likely packing in way too much, which will yield cakey and less-flavorful cookies. Spoon the flour into a measuring cup and level the top with the back of a table knife. The printable recipe includes gram measurements if you prefer to measure using a scale.
Set out your butter and cream cheese for about an hour before you begin. If these ingredients aren’t at room temperature, they won’t combine very smoothly, and there will be unpleasant cream cheese chunks in the frosting. Here are some tips for how to bring your cream cheese and butter to room temperature quickly.
Before frosting the Animal Circus Cookies, make sure they are completely cooled to room temperature. Otherwise, the frosting will begin to melt and change consistency.

Quick Tip

Piping the frosting on top. To make these Animal Circus Cookies look more fun and “bakery-style”, You can pipe the frosting in a swirl pattern. Use either a plastic bag or a piping bag and cut off the very tip. Holding the cookie in one hand and the frosting bag in the other, swirl the frosting from the inside of the cookie outwards. You can easily cover any piping “blemishes” with the animal cracker and/or extra sprinkles.

Quick Tip

You’ll probably have a bit of extra cream cheese frosting (depending, of course, on how much you add to the cookies). I’d rather err on the side of extra than not having enough to frost the Circus Animal Cookies generously. If you end up with extra frosting, use it as a fruit dip or spread over sliced strawberries. You could even add it on top of waffles or pancakes for a cheesecake-type breakfast.