The journey to these simple-to-make munchies started out with a discussion about chocolate mint cookies. I meandered to researching mint flavoring and food coloring for mintifying chocolate chip cookies. I wanted them have the color, taste, and chippy looks of mint chocolate chip ice cream, but avoid overdosing.
"Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts" describes my initial journey towards my cooky recipe. It started out with a friend's recommendation for a minty iced chocolate cooky. I got to thinking about similar cookies, then about other sweet, minty yummies. I wondered about mint flavorings, of which I included some info.
"Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 2, Nose 4 Mints N Chips" describes my deeper dive into making a mint chocolate chip cooky, greenish to resemble mint chocolate ice cream. As I would add food coloring and extract, I wondered about their shelf lives. I pointed to various recipes, calculating dough weights for inferring appropriate amounts to use. The toll house mini-chip recipe ingredients help me conclude reasonable amount of chips to use.
My ingredients for these cookies are a box of yellow cake mix, 1/3 cup of oil, 2 eggs, 5 drops of blue food coloring, 3/4 teaspoon of mint extract, and a 10-ounce bag of mini chocolate chips. For saving time and elbow grease in mixing up this dense cooky dough, I used my tilt-head stand mixer. I mixed the liquid ingredients with the balloon whisk, then switched to the flat beater paddle to add the cake mix, then the chips. I doled the dough portions onto a baking pan using a measuring spoon and rubber spatula.
Ingredients
- 1 box of yellow cake mix
- 1/3 cup of oil
- 2 eggs
- 5 drops of blue food coloring
- 3/4 teaspoon of mint extract
- 10-ounce bag of mini chocolate chips
Process (using pastry blender or mixer for combining)
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Mix oil, eggs, mint extract, and food coloring in a large bowl. (I tend to break each egg separately into the bowl before adding the other wet ingredients.)
- Mix in the cake mix.
- Fold in the chips.
- Dole out tablespoons of dough onto pan, leaving ~1" margins for baking expansion. (I use the measuring spoon with rubber spatula method.)
- Bake each batch for ~ 10 minutes, checking for browning at edges.
- Cool for ~ 2 minutes before using cooky spatula to transfer them onto cooling rack(s).
I preheated the oven to 350 for about 10 minutes while I doled the dough portions onto a baking pan, between level and rounded tablespoons. Baking time was ~ 10 minutes, about the time cooky edges became slightly brown. YMMV for amount of time, especially if your parcel out bigger dough dollops than mine. BTW, with bigger dollops, you should allow bigger margins and increase baking time.
Newish to Cooky-making Process?
Visit step-by-step details at "Minty Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies" (w/images) and "EZ Mini M&M Confetti Cookies" (narrated video, article w/images).
My baker's basic "pre-flight" suggestions:
- Have plenty of food-preparation surface(s).
- Acquire and line up all your ingredients.
- Line up all your implements (bowls, cooky pans, measuring cups/spoons, etc.)
- Remember to preheat the oven.
For additional help, the web and YouTube are LOADED with cooky recipes and advice. If you want the easiest way to step into cooky baking, start with refrigerated cooky pellets (located near refrigerated biscuits).
Cooky Stats
Raw ingredients weight and the chips: ~35 ounces
Yield: 51 ~2/1/2" diameter cookies (24 for 1st pan, 27 for 2nd pan)
Calories: 78 each (3990/51)
(cake mix powder, 1800, chips, 1400; oil, 650; eggs, 140 -> 3990)
Post-recipe Notes
- The amount of 3/4 teaspoon mint extract seemed reasonable.
- Baked color was less green than I hoped for, some color interference because of slight browning, maybe. Might have been OK to use 7 drops of color instead of 5.
- Weight evaporation from baking was about 2 1/2 ounces.
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 2, Nose 4 Mints N Chips
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 3, Spearymintal Choco Chip Cookies
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 4, Choco Unadorned/Coated Minty Cookies
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 5, Choco Minty Sandwich Cookies
3 comments:
Great work on the series, thanks. The top chef at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen has nothing on you!
Thkx for nice words! Speaking of muffin, an upcoming project will be some sort of honey and cinnamon muffin recipe.
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