The perfect fun and patriotic treat for your Fourth of July party, these Red, White, and Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies are packed full of festively colored sprinkles and plenty of white and semisweet chocolate chips! They’re made with melted butter and a touch of cornstarch to be as soft and chewy as possible.
I usually try to publish at least one festive recipe per holiday, so today’s Red White and Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies are this year’s 4th of July contribution!
Soft, chewy, and loaded with pretty patriotic sprinkles, this recipe is a cross between my Funfetti cookies and my favorite chocolate chip cookies (only no maple syrup involved this time).
I went a bit light on the chips (both white chocolate and semisweet) so that the buttery taste of the cookie and the crunchy pop of the sprinkles are the highlighted taste/texture here, and let’s just talk about those sprinkles for a second.
A Few Words on Sprinkles
For these 4th of July cookies I went with a festive blend of red white and blue star-shaped sprinkles and nonpareils. You can get away with using pretty much whatever appropriately colored sprinkles your local grocery store or cake shop has on the shelf — I know my local store sells a patriotically-colored mix in the baking aisle.
Personally I like to mix my own sprinkles and I bought mine online from Country Kitchen. I used a blend of these star sprinkles and nonpareils.
I’m not recommending you go out and buy them for yourself just for one batch of cookies, whatever you can find at your grocery store will work just fine, but I get a lot of questions on where I buy my sprinkles so I thought I’d answer that here.
And really, you don’t even have to use red white and blue sprinkles! Just use whatever colors you can find and call them “Firework Cookies” or something 😉! I know that I’m going to be making these cookies year ’round and substituting whatever color sprinkles are appropriate that time of year, and I have a feeling you’ll want to do the same once you try them.
Tips for Making These Cookies
Melt your butter, but then let it cool (a little bit).
Cut your butter into Tablespoon-sized pieces and melt it in about 15-second increments (stirring in-between) so that it doesn’t pop and splatter all over your microwave.
It’s also important that the butter is not too hot when you add your sugars, or the sugars will actually melt and you’ll be left with a runny mess that won’t bake up nicely into cookies at all. If you’ve melted your butter slowly as suggested above, this won’t take very long, only about 5 minutes.
Use room temperature eggs
I recommend this with so many of my baked goods, but especially ones like this where we’re using melted butter. Using room temperature eggs will allow all of your ingredients to combine thoroughly while you are mixing, while cold eggs could begin to re-solidify your butter.
If you don’t have room temperature eggs, just set your cold eggs in a bowl of lukewarm water for about 10-15 minutes to bring them to temperature.
Don’t leave out the cornstarch
I love using cornstarch in my cookies, it’s great for replacing some of the flour and giving the cookies some levity and structure while still keeping your baked good nice and soft. Since we are melting the butter, the cornstarch helps to bring back some of that lift that we are losing by not creaming our butter and sugar together.
Just chill
These cookies require at least 30 minutes of chilling before baking (again, we mostly have the melted butter to thank for that but I promise it’s worth it!). The dough should easily roll into a ball after chilling and if it doesn’t or is still too sticky it may require more time in the fridge.
Keep your unbaked dough in the fridge to stay cool in between batches and never put cookie dough on a hot cookie sheet.
Enjoy!
Looking for more festive 4th of July Desserts? Check out last year’s Star Spangled Cookies!
Red White & Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter melted and cooled at least 10 minutes
- 1 ¼ cup (250 g) brown sugar* tightly packed
- ½ cup (100 g) sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk room temperature preferred*
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ¾ cups (350 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup (70 g) semisweet chocolate chips plus additional for topping, optional
- ⅓ cup (70 g) white chocolate chips plus additional for topping, optional
- 3-4 Tablespoons red white and blue sprinkles
Instructions
- Combine your melted (and cooled) butter and sugars in a large bowl and stir until well-combined.1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, 1 ¼ cup (250 g) brown sugar*, ½ cup (100 g) sugar
- Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir until combined.1 large egg + 1 egg yolk, 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.2 ¾ cups (350 g) all-purpose flour, 1 Tablespoon cornstarch, ¾ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ¾ teaspoon salt
- Gradually add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined.
- Stir in semisweet and white chocolate chips.⅓ cup (70 g) semisweet chocolate chips, ⅓ cup (70 g) white chocolate chips
- Add sprinkles and use a spatula to fold into the batter.3-4 Tablespoons red white and blue sprinkles
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and transfer to the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Once oven has preheated, remove your chilled cookie dough from the freezer and roll dough into approximately 2-Tablespoon-sized scoops. Roll gently to form a ball and place on prepared cookie sheet (space cookies at least 2" apart).
- Bake on 350F (175C) for 10-11 minutes, centers of the cookies may still seem slightly underbaked -- allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet to finish cooking there, this will help keep them nice and soft.
- If desired, gently nestle additional chocolate chips and white chocolate chips into the tops of each cookie within 1 minute of coming out of the oven.
Notes
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.
Kathy
Can this recipe be doubled?
Sam
Sure thing! 🙂
Kathy
Thanks so much!!!!
Karen Sutton
OMGosh! I’m in awe! Thank you for sharing your talent. I have tried a few of your recipes now, and all have been excellent. I’m going to get rave reviews on these Red, White & Blue Chocolate Chip cookies today, Memorial Day, from my family. I just have to keep my hubby out of them until guests arrive. These are the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever made. Again, thank you!
Sam
Thank you so much, Karen! I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed everything! Sounds like you need to make a few extra cookies just for your husband! 😉 🙂
Ida Vera
These didn’t come together at all 😞… the worst chocolate chip cookies are my go to, but these were not good. Not sure what I did wrong, it was weird.
Sam
I’m so sorry to hear this, Ida! What do you mean by they didn’t come together? I may be able to help troubleshoot.
Maureen
Looking to make these with some kitchen sink add-ins- pretzels, caramel, chocolate chips, m&m’s, toffee. I did see your kitchen sink cookies but don’t have any pudding so thought I would try these per your suggestion. Any recommendations on amounts for add-ins? Have you ever used potato chips along with pretzels or does that seem like too much salt? Thanks, Sam! Always love your recipes!
Sam
Hi Maureen! As for the amounts, you could probably do about the same amount of everything as what is in the kitchen sink cookies. I may scale them down a little bit. I have not tried the potato chips and pretzel combination.
Valerie Howard
I have now made dozens of your recipes and they have all been amazing!! Thank you!
Sam
I’m so glad you have enjoyed everything so much, Valerie! 🙂
Tami
I literally have never commented on a blog before, but this is THE best chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve ever used. The cornstarch addition really changes the game. Thank you!
Sugar Spun Run
Thank you so much, Tami! I am so glad that you have a new favorite cookie and that you really enjoyed this recipe. Thanks for commenting. 🙂
Jackie
This is the fifth recipe of yours I’ve made. You are amazing. I can’t thank you enough for all the time and effort you put into creating easy, fun, and delicious recipes!
Sam
Your comment just made my day!! 🙂
I am so happy to hear you are enjoying the recipes, Jackie! Thank you so much for following along <3
Carissa Nelson | Spoonful of Easy
Sprinkles make absolutely everything better and very interested in the addition of cornstarch. Very fun recipe!
Sam
Thank you, Carissa!! 🙂