Sparkly Red Velvet Cookies

If you love red velvet cake, this easy one-bowl red velvet cookie recipe has your name written all over it. The cookies have just the right balance of crispy edges, soft middles, and big chocolate flavor, with the prettiest shade of red in the land and crunchy sparkle from sanding sugar. In addition to requiring no special equipment, you won’t need to refrigerate this cookie dough or let it rest before baking, making it perfect for when you need a cookie right away. Gel food coloring works best to achieve the deep red color—plus, it won’t affect the texture of the final cookies the way liquid food coloring does (if the dough is too wet, the cookies will spread upon baking, resulting in less chewy cookies with crackle-less tops—a tragedy on both fronts). And while any brand of sanding sugar is fine, we’ve found that the Betty Crocker brand delivers the most vibrant, sparkly finish (you’ll definitely end up with red-stained fingers no matter which sugar you use, but that’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make). —Jessie Sheehan