By December 2026. Christmas and the engagement party happening in the same week — Mia's family came from their city for a gathering at Table that Ethan and Mia hosted on Saturday, family meeting family over food in a restaurant that is the fullest expression of everything Ethan has absorbed and built. I watched both families sit at tables in the room my son made and eat the food he made and talk the way people talk when they're deciding whether they're going to love each other. They're going to love each other. I could see it in the first hour.
Mia's family brings its own food traditions — her grandmother's tamales, her mother's mole, a whole vocabulary of cooking that comes from a different lineage than mine and which I want to learn. We talked in the kitchen while things were being carried out — me and her mother Maria — and she described techniques I don't know and I described ones she hasn't tried and we stood there for an hour exchanging kitchen knowledge across a table while our children were getting married across the room. I told her about the potato salad tradition. She told me about the tamale-making the day before Christmas. We agreed to cook together sometime. We will.
Christmas cookies. The tree. Noah at fifteen who still wants to hang the ornaments and who decorates the tree with the same serious attention he's always brought to the things that matter. Some traditions you grow into and some you grow up in and never outgrow.
That week — the engagement party, Christmas, two families finding each other across a table — called for something that looked exactly like how it felt: bright and sweet and full of color. Maria and I talked about tamales and mole and potato salad, and while I’m still working up to learning her grandmother’s techniques, what I could do right then was bake. These Confetti Cake Batter Cookies went on the Christmas cookie tray that year, and every time I look at the sprinkles I think of Noah serious-faced at the ornament box, and Mia’s family laughing at the restaurant table, and the particular joy of a week when everything is happening at once and all of it is good.
Confetti Cake Batter Cookies
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 27 minutes | Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 box (15.25 oz) white or yellow cake mix
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup rainbow sprinkles (jimmies), plus more for topping
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Mix the dough. In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, flour, and salt. Add the eggs, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract and stir until a soft dough forms. The dough will be thick.
- Fold in sprinkles. Gently fold the rainbow sprinkles into the dough, being careful not to overmix or the colors will bleed.
- Scoop and top. Scoop the dough into 1.5-tablespoon balls and place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Press a few additional sprinkles onto the top of each ball.
- Bake. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the centers look slightly underdone. Do not overbake — they will firm up as they cool.
- Cool. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They will be soft and chewy once fully cooled.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 148 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 22g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 160mg