Pan-Banging Confetti Cookies

Wanna get into the holiday spirit? Make these pan-banging sugar cookies. Loaded with colorful sprinkles and sparkling with sugar, these exuberant cookies promise to bring out the kid in all of us all season long.

What the heck is a pan-banging cookie?
If you’ve never heard of pan-banging a cookie, it’s a technique popularized by Sarah Keiffer, the baker behind the popular Vanilla Bean Blog. Basically, it involves pulling a tray of half-baked cookies out of the oven and banging it against the oven rack to create bunches of little ripples in the cookies’ surface. The result is a gorgeously crinkled cookie that’s thin and crispy on the outside and soft and chewy in the center. Sarah went viral for this technique when she published a recipe for her Pan-Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies back in 2016. Since then it’s been replicated and riffed on by bakers everywhere.

Tips & tricks:
Banging a tray of half-baked cookies might seem a little strange, but I promise it’s not nearly as wild as it sounds. Once you’ve gotten comfortable with it, you’ll want to bang every cookie you bake. Here are the things you’ll want to keep in mind to set yourself up for pan-banging perfection:

1. Make the cookies big. That’s right, each cookie should be made with 1/4 c. dough. Making the cookies big is key to achieving that graduation of texture (super-fudgy in the center to crispy around the edges) that makes these cookies so great.
2. Only bake 4 cookies at a time. It might be tempting to cram more cookie dough onto a single sheet, but resist. These cookies are gonna spread: They need a lot of room on the baking sheet.
3. Don’t chill the dough. These cookies bake best when they’re baked immediately after the dough is made. If the dough is cold, it won’t spread as readily and you won’t get the same gorgeous ripples.
4. Lift the pan 2" above the rack before banging. We’re not talking about dropping the pan from huge heights here. You don’t need to even take it out of the oven. Just lift the pan a few inches from the rack and bring it down firmly and decisively.
5. Rotate the pan after each bang. Every oven is uneven, and if you’re holding the side of the pan closest to the door, chances are the impact of the banging will be different for cookies on different sides of the cookie sheet. Rotating evens everything out so all the cookies get an even bake and an even chance at those gorgeous pan-banging ripples.

Storage:
These cookies are best the day they’re baked, but if you want to bake them ahead, they’ll stay good for up to 3 days in an airtight container at room temperature.