Cake Mix Macaroon Cookies

How about a macaroon cooky that tastes a lot better than a gluey coconut clump? How about a cooky that chews like a softish cooky and has dominant coconut texture and flavor? Use a cake mix for the dry-ingredient base.

Most of my recipes are about minimal process and few ingredients. Most recipes I read lose me if I see more than six ingredients or multiple steps or time investment, or a combination of those conditions. Some of my ingredients at home drive my baking choices. One item I had was a bag of coconut I got free with a purchase of something else. I also had a box of white cake mix that I wanted to use up.

I based my recipe mostly on the ExclusivelyRecipes.com French vanilla macaroon bars recipe. A main deviation was mixing 1/3 C cooking oil into the wet ingredients instead of cutting in 1/3 C butter into the cake mix powder. I decided to try making individual cookies instead of shaping the dough into a pan and cutting it into bars after baking. I omitted the chocolate to keep the recipe simple.

Another recipe I consulted was the Chocolate Chip-Coconut Macaroons from the Betty Crocker Ultimate Cake Mix Cookbook. I deviated from the recipe as follows: I used only 2 T water instead of 1 C, used half as much coconut, used 1 egg instead of 3 egg whites, and omitted the chocolate. The recipe is online except that they omitted the quantities for the ingredients, which they want readers to request by email. Smart cookies will be able to infer the quantities, based on this paragraph and my list of ingredients. :-)

My pixstrip shows three images:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients, dry and wet
3. Baked cookies

Implements

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• medium-large mixing bowl
• small mixing bowl or large cup or jar
• fork or similar item for mixing wet ingredients
• measuring cup
• measuring spoons
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Ingredients, dry

• 1 1/2 C flaked coconut
• 1 18ish oz. white cake mix

ingredients, wet

• 1 egg
• 1/3 C cooking oil (Replace 1 T with sesame oil if desired for flavor twist.)
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 2 T water

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Pour the coconut into a medium-large mixing bowl, breaking up the lumps.
3. Pour the cake mix powder into the coconut, using the pastry blender to blend together.
4. In a bowl or large cup, combine the oil, egg, vanilla, and water. For a more aromatic flavor, exchange 1 T of the oil with 1 T sesame oil.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger bowl and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
6. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
7. Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
8. Bake for about 12+ minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
9. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

Shaping the dough slightly concave yielded 45 cookies, calculated to about 80 calories each. YMMV.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

• A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch [Valentine]
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites