Fruity Pebbles cookies are so fun, colorful, and fruity (of course!). We’ll add a cereal milk glaze to give them a gourmet, bakery-style look! Recipe includes a how-to video.
Fun Fruity Pebbles Cookies
While I’m not personally a big cereal person when it comes to breakfast (we prefer scrambled eggs or French toast around here), I do love adding them to my desserts! These Fruity Pebbles cookies are big, thick, gourmet-style cookies with tender, soft centers and pops of crunchy cereal. The glaze on top is made with cereal milk (like my Fruity Pebbles frosting!), and the final product is just so fun and colorful!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Easy to make despite being gourmet. If you don’t mind something a little more involved but equally fun and impressive, you should try my blueberry muffin cookies next!
- Distinct Fruity Pebbles flavor. We’ll add the cereal to the cookie dough, in the glaze, and as a decoration. We’ll also skip the vanilla extract and use lemon instead, which really boosts the fruity flavor as well.
- Only 30 minutes of chilling. Or you can keep the dough covered in the fridge for a few days if you don’t feel like baking the same day.
- Soft, chewy texture, thanks to cake flour. I first experimented with adding cake flour to my Lofthouse Cookies and loved the tender results. I do include notes for using all-purpose flour below, if that’s all you have.
What You Need
Let’s review a few of the ingredients in today’s recipe, just in case you have substitution questions.
- Fruity Pebbles. The star of the recipe! You’ll need roughly 1 ¼ cups of cereal for this recipe. If you need to use up more of your cereal, try my Fruity Pebbles macarons!
- Cake flour. Cake flour is best for a tender and soft texture. All purpose flour will work in a pinch, but it isn’t an even substitute if you measure with cups. I discuss this in more detail in the recipe card below.
- Softened butter. Use unsalted butter and make sure you don’t let it soften too much, or your Fruity Pebbles cookies will be flatter than intended. Typically, softened butter still has a bit of a chill to it; if you use a thermometer, it should be about 68F.
- Lemon extract. We are not using vanilla extract today–this is intentional. I found that adding vanilla diminished the fruity flavor of the cereal. Instead, we’ll use a tiny bit of lemon extract, which gives the cookie an all-over fruity flavor and works really well.
- Milk. I use whole milk in the cereal milk glaze, since that’s what I keep on hand. I suspect other milks would work too, but you may not need to add quite as much depending on how thin the milk is. Note that using alternative milks with a stronger flavor like coconut milk may change the flavor of the glaze (but, also? That sounds delicious).
SAM’S TIP: I like to break up some of the cereal pieces before adding them to the dough. This is optional, but I like how the smaller flecks look throughout and prefer the texture this way!
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Fruity Pebbles Cookies
Cookies
- Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy.
- Stir in the eggs and extract until well combined, then set aside.
- Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then gradually add them to the wet ingredients. This is a dry dough, so it’s important to add the dry ingredients gradually (I do this in four parts). If you were to add them all at once, your dough would be very difficult to work with.
- Fold in the Fruity Pebbles, then cover and chill the dough.
- Roll large scoops of dough between your palms before placing on parchment lined baking sheets. You can just drop the cookies directly on the baking sheet, but they look neater and more uniform if you roll them first.
- Bake until the bottoms start to turn light golden brown, then remove and let cool completely before decorating.
Glaze
- Make the cereal milk by steeping the cereal in the milk. Strain and discard the cereal after 20-30 minutes, saving the milk.
- Whisk splashes of milk into the powdered sugar until you have a thick glaze. You may not use all of the milk.
- Drizzle glaze over a cookie, then immediately decorate with additional crushed cereal if desired. Repeat with the remaining cookies, then enjoy!
SAM’S TIP: The glaze firms up fast, so it’s best to decorate one cookie at a time! If you add the glaze to all of your cookies at once, the cereal decoration on top won’t stick!
Frequently Asked Questions
Because of their size, these cookies take quite a bit of time to cool and set up after baking, usually an hour or so. As a result, if you dig into them while they’re still warm, they may appear underdone in the centers. This is normal and intentional! If you were to bake the cookies all the way through in the oven (as opposed to finishing on their baking sheets outside the oven), they wouldn’t be as soft and tender.
You don’t have to, but I highly recommend you do! The glaze isn’t just for looks; it adds a lot of flavor (and gives the extra, decorative cereal something to stick to!).
While I haven’t tried it, I think this recipe would work well with another cereal of a similar texture (cocoa pebbles, maybe?). If you experiment with different recipes, I’d love to know how it works for you!
If you love cereal-themed desserts, you need to try my peanut butter rice krispie treats next!
Enjoy!
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Fruity Pebbles Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter softened
- 1 ½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature preferred
- ½ teaspoon lemon extract
- 4 cups (450 g) cake flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoons table salt
- 1 cup (46 g) Fruity Pebbles cereal
Cereal milk glaze (this amount gives us 3 Tbsp of infused milk)
- ¼ cup (12 g) Fruity Pebbles cereal
- ¼ cup (60 ml) whole milk
- 1 ½ cups (190 g) powdered sugar
- Additional Fruity Pebbles for decorating
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
For the cookies
- Combine butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and use an electric mixer (or a stand mixer with paddle attachment) to beat together until light, fluffy, and well-creamed (about 2 minutes on high speed).1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, 1 ½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar
- Add eggs and lemon extract and stir until well combined.2 large eggs, ½ teaspoon lemon extract
- In a separate, medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and table salt.4 cups (450 g) cake flour, 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, ¾ teaspoons table salt
- With mixer on low-speed gradually stir the dry ingredients into the wet until completely combined.
- Add Fruity Pebbles and use a spatula to gently fold into the dough until well incorporated.1 cup (46 g) Fruity Pebbles cereal
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 days. When nearly ready to bake, begin preheating oven to 375F (190C) and line several baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Scoop ¼ cup (75g) of dough per cookie and roll into round balls between your palms (or just drop on the baking sheet, I just prefer the more uniform appearance of the rounded cookies!). Space cookies at least 2” (5cm) apart on prepared baking sheet.
- Transfer to center rack of 375F (190C) preheated oven and bake for 11-12 minutes. Cookies will be pale when finished baking but near the bottom they will be turning a light golden brown.
- Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely before decorating. You can begin preparing the cereal milk while the cookies are cooling.
For the cereal milk glaze:
- Pour milk over cereal in a small dish and let sit for 20-30 minutes.¼ cup (12 g) Fruity Pebbles cereal, ¼ cup (60 ml) whole milk
- Pour through a fine mesh strainer into a measuring cup, using a spatula to press as much milk from the cereal as possible. Discard strained cereal. (If the cookies are not yet cool enough to decorate, you can cover the cereal milk and refrigerate until ready to use).
- Pour the powdered sugar into a small mixing bowl and gradually whisk in the cereal milk, a splash at a time, until you have a thick glaze that ribbons smoothly off the whisk and holds its shape for several seconds before dissolving back into the bowl. You may not need all of the cereal milk, or if you need more you can just use a splash of regular milk.1 ½ cups (190 g) powdered sugar
- Drizzle glaze over cookies and, if desired, immediately sprinkle with additional crushed Fruity Pebbles. Allow glaze to set before serving.Additional Fruity Pebbles for decorating
- Note that cookies will look underdone in the centers until they have cooled completely, which can take over an hour (they’re totally fine to eat before then, though!).
Notes
Why cake flour
Cake flour yields a more tender soft cookie. It just worked really well to give me the results I was looking for. You can substitute all-purpose flour, you would need 3 ⅔ cups (450g) of all-purpose flour, just know the cookies won’t be quite as soft.Storing
Store in an airtight container at room temperature where they will keep for up to 4 days.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Stacey
These cookies are SO yummy! The fruity pebble flavor really shines and they’re super easy to make. They came out perfectly – very soft and delicious. Thanks for another great recipe!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Stacey! 🙂
Mattie McDaniel
Do you think I could substitute Cinnamon Toast Crunch for the fruity pebbles?
Sam
Hi Mattie! I think it would be a fun experiment and personally I would definitely give it a try. There is a possibility that the cookies could spread more due to the added sugar on the outside of the cinnamon toast crunch cereal, but if you try it please let me know how they turn out!
Katie
Hi Sam! I can’t wait to try this recipe! I have a question about internal temperature. I usually take the temp of one cookie if it’s thick because I’m so scared to underbake. If I take the temp, what am I aiming for? As long as it hits 165 will they be good to take out? Or should I take them out a bit under? how long does a cookie this thickness continue to bake once it’s out?
I have absolutely loved all your cookie recipes so far! You’re the cookie queen!
Sam
Hi Katie! Honestly this is a tough question to answer, while they continue baking when out of the oven, I can’t say for sure how long or how much it would continue bake.