Are you supposed to sprinkle cookies before or after baking?

during....use foil

1

Sprinkle them before baking them. You avoid it by using a shaker to sprinkle the sugar on them and by concentrating on the middle of the cookie. Hold the shaker over the middle of the cookie, shake, and it should cover most of the cookie.

Edit: It is also best to use the larger sized granule of sugar to sprinkle on top of the cookies. And the sugar won't burn on top during baking because sugar cookies don't bake long enough for that to happen.

roll the cookie dough in the sprinkles/sugar before baking them (like you would for a snicker doodle). Do avoid burnt sugar on the baking sheet, cover it with aluminum foil.

After

Before baking. You just have to be careful not to get any sugar on the cookie sheet to avoid burnt sugar.

if you're talking about putting sugar on a cookie (like a peanut butter cookie or a snicker doodle) then you should put it on before they go in the oven, and to avoid burnt sugar, dip the cookie dough (one side only) in the sugar (like a pb cookie). if you're talking about sugar sprinkles, or regular sprinkles (like the colored kinds that go on holiday cookies), i'd put it on after

After: sprinkles will char/burn if put on cookies BEFORE they go in oven.

if you sprinkle them before the sprinkle color might fade and it gets all over the pan... if you sprinkle it after it won't stick as well... so i don't know... it's up to you!