Easy Smarties Cookies

Smarties Cookies are a fun and colourful sweet treat! Also known as Smarties Biscuits or Dotty Cookies, they only use 5 ingredients! Perfect to make for both big and little kids, you will find yourself content with the simple ingredients and step by step instructions. Get your bake on with bright pops of colour with this easy smarties cookies recipe 😍.

Recipes like my Cornflake Biscuits, Anzac Biscuits and Kit Kat Biscuits are all about the sweet crunchy treats we know and love.

My Pecan Pinwheels and Nutella Pinwheels show us how to make sweet puff pastry delights.

🤍 Recipe Highlights

Everything you will come to know and love (love, love 💖💖) about this smartie cookie recipe is summarised below:

• Simple, everyday ingredients.
• Only 5 ingredients needed.
• Easily increase ingredient amounts to increase quantity.
• Quick, simple recipe: baking the cookies takes less than 15 minutes in the oven. They can be done when you need treats ASAP!!
• Baking with colourful chocolate smarties is fun and enjoyable! They add such a great creative vibe to recipes, yet are very simple to cook with. Rainy day fun I say!
• Kid Friendly: I have never met a kid that didn't like smarties! Have you? Let alone cookies with smarties, it is practically a home run! The kids can help with this one and add white chocolate smarties or milk chocolate smarties for extra fun.
• Eggless cookie recipe: we only need sugar, flour, butter and vanilla to bring the cookie dough together.
• No baking soda, no brown sugar, we keep the recipe very simple!
• No milk needed: which means the rest of the ingredients are long term and unlikely to perish so you can grab from the pantry, not the shop as needed.

Tasty Tip: This is a fuss free recipe that can be whipped up in a hurry. Keep it in mind for those times when someone 'drops in' 👍😉🥰! (They are in for a real treat).

🥗 Ingredients

Everything you need to make these cookies is shown in the photo below. For exact measurements and instructions, please refer to the printable recipe card.

As you can see, the recipe calls for:

• Butter: I recommend using regular unsalted butter. You will find it easiest to work with if you chop it into smaller pieces/cubes. This means that when you go to beat the butter, the beaters will work across the pieces as opposed to one big block of butter.
• Vanilla Essence: you can use the cheaper alternative known as vanilla extract if you want. For a basic recipe like this, there is minimal difference.
• Icing Sugar: Also known as confectioner's sugar, this a soft powdered form of sugar. It is popular to use to dust and decorate cakes and biscuits and brings a lovely sweet taste to the cookies.
• Plain Four: we don't need to use self raising flour or baking powder in this recipe. We keep it really very simple. You will get better results if you sift the flour (and the icing sugar).
• Colourful smarties: these are the ingredient that bring all the colour and fun to the recipe! They are great to bake with and are a hugely popular candy/lolly.

Tasty Tip: I use a colander to sift the icing sugar and flour into the bowl as I go. You might find this an easier alternative to a hand held squeaky sifter! I also chop the butter into cubes as it is easier to cream then is you used a stick of butter whole.

Additional tasty tip: I like to offer a number of substitutions and variations to give you options when making the recipe. If in doubt of any of the above ingredients, or wanting alternatives, read this section before diving into the instructions on how to make the recipe below 👍😉.

🍳 Instructions

Here are the step by step detailed instructions to make the recipe. You will need electric hand held beaters and a large bowl to start.

• Add butter to mixing bowl and cream till soft (Photo 1)
• Add vanilla essence and stir to combine (Photo 2)
• Gradually add in sifted icing sugar to the butter mixture (Photo 3)
• Ensure icing sugar is mixed in with wet ingredients (Photo 4)

👩‍🍳 How to Make Smarties Cookies

To make the cookies, start by creaming the butter in a mixing bowl till it is pale and creamy. Then add the vanilla, followed by the icing sugar and continue to mix. Add the flour and use the beaters to have a consistent cookie dough (if you want to knead with your hands at this point, that is fine too 👍👍).

You don't need a super fancy expensive mix master, a hand held electric mixer will be just fine.

Tasty Tip: Sifting the icing sugar and flour gives better results and only takes minutes, so it is worth it!

• Add sifted flour to butter sugar mixture (Photo 5)
• Continue to mix so that it is consistently combined (Photo 6)
• Use clean hands or spatula to knead cookie dough (Photo 7)
• Portion cookie dough onto silicon baking mat (Photo 8)

You will find that once the flour mixture has been combined with the wet ingredients, you can set the beaters aside.

Then you will need either clean hands or a spatula, to stir the mix (knead) it, for a minute or so as this brings it all together.

Tasty Tip: A spatula run around the top and edges of the bowl helps to bring any loose sugar and flour back into the cookie dough mix. Or you could use a wooden spoon.

• Place the individually portioned cookies onto tray (Photo 9)
• Use 2 fingers to push down slightly (Photo 10)
• Decorate the cookies with the smarties (Photo 11)
• Bake for 12 to 15 mins (Photo 12)

A mini cookie scoop is the best way to get uniform sized cookies. So use one if it is available to you.

Alternatively you can scoop the mixture into your palms using 2 teaspoons and then roll into small balls.

Pushing the top of each cookie down slightly enables us to have a space to put the smarties. They can be gently pressed into the tops of the cookies.

Tasty Tip: As the biscuits will spread slightly as they cook it is best to not over crowd them. I recommend a maximum of 12 cookies per baking tray.

The biscuits will cook quickly in the oven. They will be ready in 12 to 15 mins and will have a lovely golden brown colour.

When ready use on oven mit to remove each tray and a silicon flat turner slide gently under each to transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Whilst cooked, the biscuits will be slightly soft when freshly baked, so be gentle when moving them to the cooling rack. Or allow them to cool for 5 minutes before doing this to ensure they don't break.

The biscuits will cool and firm up on the baking tray, so leave them for a little bit to harden.

They smell amazing and the texture of the cookies is soft and buttery, like shortbread!

🍽 Serving Suggestions

A cup of tea of a bikkie of course!

You can serve these for morning tea, at parties or wrap and give for gifts.

You can take them as your plate to a BBQ, you can make them for a bake sale or whip some up for the kids.

They smell great, they taste soft like shortbread and they have chocolate in there too, all of the best worlds at once!

👍 How to Guide

How to Store

Store the cookies in a sealed, airtight container. They will last 7 to 10 days. No need to refrigerate.

How to Freeze

To freeze this recipe, I recommend making the cookie dough and rolling it into a long log.

When ready to use, simply remove from the freezer, allow to defrost, then cut the log into portions, place on baking tray and press the smarties on top.

I don't recommend freezing the smarties as that can lead to mixed results.

How to Reheat

Once the biscuits are baked, you won't need to reheat them.

Simply allow to cool slightly, before transferring to a cooling rack where they will firm up.

Then transfer to an air tight container.

😉 Substitutions and Variations

As always, there are a couple of things that you can do to switch in and out with this recipe. You might like to try the following:

• Use mini m and m's instead of smarties.
• Want to make them as chocolate smarties cookies, simply add in 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (sifted).
• Alternatively, you can use sprinkles instead of smarties.
• Switch in chocolate chips for the smarties.
• At Christmas make a batch using green and red candies!
• Use white chocolate chips if you can't find smarties.
• Melt white chocolate or dark chocolate and dip one half of each cookie in the melted chocolate for a creative touch.
• Got a baby shower coming up? Make pink or blue decorated cookies by using the one colour consistently.

The shortbread like texture means the cookies will melt in your mouth and you will find them hard to resist, they won't last long!

💡 Tasty Tips

These are my top tips and tricks to share so that you get cookies cooked to perfection every time:

• Ensure the oven is pre heated.
• The butter will be easier to work with if it is a room temperature.
• Use silicon baking sheets over parchment paper/alfoil.
• Don't overcrowd the baking tray, aim for 12 cookies per sheet.
• Use a mini cookie scoop to get uniform sized biscuits.
• Use 2 finger tips to push the top of the cookies down and use that space to place the smarties. Press down slightly to stick.
• Keep on eye on them in the oven, they will bake quite quickly!

🤓 Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if you bake Smarties?

When you bake smarties, they are unlikely to melt if only baked for a short period of time. Cooked for longer, they can crack.

For these cookies, we press them into the top of the biscuits and oven bake them for 12 to 15 minutes.

How many calories are in a smartie cookie?

There are 158 kcal calories per smarties cookie.

Are Smarties chocolate?

Smarties are individual chocolate drops covered in a hard coloured coating.

Nestle describes them on their packets as 'yummy milk chocolate in a crispy shell'.

What is an alternative for smarties?

If you can't find or don't want to use smarties, you can try mini or regular m and m's, chocolate buttons or chocolate freckles.

Can you buy Smarties in Australia?

Yes, almost everywhere!

Smarties are hugely popular in Australia and sold across supermarkets such as Coles, Woolies, Big W, IGA, Night Owl, Petrol Stations and convenient stores.

Do Smarties make you smarter?

Wouldn't it be great if eating smarties, did indeed make you smarter!

Ha, whilst excellent in theory, there is no factual basis for this.

😍 More Easy Sweet Treat Recipes

Sweet treats, how could we ever live without them. If you want to get your bake on and on and on, here are some recipes that might be right up your alley:

• Malteser Biscuits
• Milky Way Biscuits
• Mars Bar Cookies
• Nutella Biscuits
• Coco Pop Crackles
• Golden Syrup Cornflake Cakes
• Snickers Cookies
• Air Fryer Biscuits
• Baileys Cheesecake Balls
• Chocolate Caramel Slice

You can also find all of my baking recipes in the one spot to check them all out 😉👍. Bake on my friends, on and on and on!

Adrianne xx

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