EZ Mini M&M Confetti Cookies

My cake mix cooky recipe is the summer counterpart (summer-temperature tolerant) to my winter cake mix cooky recipe "Minty Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies". I wanted to bake some cookies that have chocolate that melts in your mouth, not in your hand. I thought about M&M's, then remembered chomping on mini M&M's the previous Halloween. Then I thought such cookies would look even more festive, besides having the colorful candy shells, if I added jimmies.

Several mini M & M cooky recipes I ran across are scratch and require about 10 ingredients. Well, how about starting with the standard cake mix cookie process that requires only cake mix, oil, egg?

My method of cake mix for this recipe was using 1/2 box of chocolate cake mix and 1/2 box of Pillsbury Funfetti cake mix. The Funfetti powder contains 2 tablespoons of jimmies, so my half box contained one tablespoon.

If you want the milk chocolatey cooky effect without weighing out cake mixes, you can use a marble cake mix. Stir jimmies into the cake powder(s) before mixing up the batter.

My pixstrip shows the following image areas:

1. Initial
   1. Implements
   2. Ingredients
   3. Partially mixed dough (wet ingredients, dry ingredients) and set-aside mini M&Ms
2. Main mixing
   1. Mixed dough and and set-aside mini M&Ms
   2. Dough with mini M&Ms being poured
   3. Dough and mini M&Ms being stirred together
   4. Mixed dough
3. Baking
   1. Raw dough in pan
   2. Baked cookies in pan, some being scooped and flipped onto cooling rack
   3. Cooled cookies

Implements

• Small mixing bowl
• Larger mixing bowl
• Pastry blender
• Spoon for measuring out cooky dough
• Measuring cup
• Spatula for scraping dough onto pan
• Cooky pan(s)
• Cooling rack for done cookies
• Cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 box chocolate cake mix
• 1/2 box Pillsbury Funfetti cake mix (or 1/2 box white cake mix and at least 1 tablespoon of jimmies)
• 1/2 bag of mini M&Ms (~ 5 oz)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°.
2. Combine the powders and jimmies.
3. Combine the oil and eggs.
4. Combine the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. The dough will be thick.
5. Stir the mini M&Ms into the dough. Slow and steady works.
6. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough, and use the rubber spatula to shape.
7. Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. (For slightly flatter cookies, slightly flatten the shaped dough rounds with the spatula or the measuring cup.)
8. Bake for about 12 minutes.
9. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

The yield was 41 cookies, amounting to ~73 calories each. YMMV

Post-recipe Thoughts
The confetti part of the cookies was sparse. To give the cookies a more "celebratory" look in the future, I'd probably ensure three to four tablespoons of jimmies for each batch.

I had some boxes of cake mix on hand, so I measured and used half boxes, storing the other halves in the refrigerator. An easier process would be to use a marble cake mix and stir in jimmies into the powder. If you prefer a vanilla instead of summer-tolerant chocolate cooky, use just white or yellow cake mix, jimmies, and mini M&Ms.

July 12, 2016: I baked a second batch Sunday. This time, the 1/2 box of chocolate cake mix was Duncan Hines Classic Devil's Food Moist instead of Betty Crocker Super Moist Chocolate Fudge. Also, I added more jimmies—2 1/2 tablespoons, all that was left in my jar. The image on the left has the BC mix; the one one right has the DH mix and extra jimmies.

 I was surprised to see that the BC-mix cookies were much darker than the DH-mix ones. IMHO, the DH ones are closer to my idea of milk chocolatey cookies.

The yield for DH-mix cookies was 45, probably as a result of 1 1/2 tablespoons of additional jimmies, and variation of my cooky dough dispensing. I calculated DH-mix cookies to be about 71 calories each (BC-mix cookies, about 73 each.)

Krusteaz Choco Caramel Squares

These sweet-tooth munchies have a fudge-brownie cooky base, topped with non-nut nougat and chopped nuts. Nougat etymology includes nuts; the sweet confection on the cooky is not nutty—only the final topper. For expediency in this article, "nougat" refers to that middle layer, a combination of melted chocolate chips and squeeze-packet caramel.

About a year ago, I bought a box of Krusteaz Molten Deep Dish Chocolate Cookie with Caramel Center. I periodically would read the instructions, wondering if I really wanted to use up all the ingredients for 12 cookies that had "molten" centers. The yield seems pretty paltry, especially considering extra hassle beyond other munchies I make.

I looked at suggested recipe alternatives on the box. I wasn't warm to requirements for additional ingredients.

• Seattle Bars: graham cracker crumbs, pudding (prepared!), toasted coconut, and nuts
• Creamy Salted Caramel Centros: whipping cream—all of 2 tablespoons!

So, I took inspiration from the Seattle Bars and tried something else, skipping all the additional ingredients except for nuts, and adding melted chocolate chips. Was the process less hassle? No. But the results won rave reviews, and gave me ideas for a future similar but different munchie.

This recipe differs somewhat from other recipes I've posted because I needed to improvise as I went along. I've added several parenthetical thoughts during the process. My pixstrip shows the following image areas:

1. Ingredients and utensils (Pics do not include additional implements I needed to use later.)
1. Utensils and ingredients. The dashed line indicates the mix kit is part of two preparation stages. (The left side shows the dough ingredients, the right side shows the topping ingredients.)
2. Oblong pan and spray oil
2. Doh!
1. Bowl of the cooky dough—mixed eggs, soft butter, and Krusteaz powder
2. Pan with the raw, pressed cooky dough, spread out to edges
3. Pan with the baked cooky slab (Note: During the baking, I needed to press some of the dough down to flatten for height consistency.)
3. Squares!
1. Cooky squares in larger, wax paper-lined pan (Note: First, I flipped the cooky slab onto a cooling rack, cut it into 24 squares, then placed the squares right side up onto the larger, wax-lined pan.)
2. Cooky squares, topped with with choco-caramel and nuts.
3. Finished squares in cupcake liners and tote tin

Implements

• 9" x 13" pan
• Pastry blender
• Mixing bowl for blending to-be-baked ingredients together
• Mixing bowl for melting chocolate chips, then blending in the envelope of Krusteaz caramel "sauce"
• Spoon(s) for later distributing the choco-caramel topping onto the baked cooky squares
• Additional helpful items during process
  • latex or vinyl glove(s) for spreading out the cooky dough, then later for pressing down inconsistent-height dough during baking
  • Cooling rack
  • Wax paper
  • Additional pan or cooky sheet
  • Plastic knife for separating the baked cooky slab from the pan
  • Knife fur cutting squares
  • Plate for nuts
  • Cupcake papers

Ingredients

• For the cooky slab
• 1 egg
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
• The bag of the Krusteaz mix powder
• For the topping
• 4 oz chocolate chips
• The 4-oz package of the Krusteaz caramel topping
• 1/2 cup of chopped nuts (Suggestion: Place on a plate or other flat area.)

Instructions (for the cooky slab)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the oil and egg.
3. Stir the Krusteaz powder into the wet ingredients.
4. Spray the oil generously onto the pan. (Spray REALLY generously at the edges and corners!)
5. Distribute the cooky dough evenly onto the pan. (Gloves help for less-mess pressing.)
6. Bake for about 13 minutes, and check progress. (The dough rose unevenly, so I pressed the high part to flatten it even with the rest of the slab.)
7. Finish baking for about another 3 minutes, verifying doneness with toothpick or lightly pressing the cooky slab for springiness.
8. Remove the pan from the oven and let it rest for a couple of minutes or so.
9. Use a plastic knife to carefully separate the cooky slab edges and corners from the pan, then flip the pan upside down onto a cooling rack.
10. Cut the cooky slab into 24 squares, placing them right side up. (I initially subdivided the slab into 4 quarters, placed them right side up onto a larger, wax-lined pan, and finished cutting them into squares.)

Instructions (for the topping and completion)

1. Melt the chocolate chips.
2. Snip the envelope of caramel and squeeze it into the bowl.
3. Alternately stir and heat the chocolate and caramel together.
4. Use spoons or similar implements to distribute the nougatty mixture onto the cooky squares. (Using two spoons, I made use of the thick mixture's inertia for transports and gravity for the drops.)
5. For each square, turn it upside down and lightly flatten it onto the plate of nuts, then place it right side up elsewhere. (The nougat acts as a glue.)

The batch made 24 squares, ~142 calories (gasp!) each. The box recipe itself would have made 12 molten-filling cookies at 220 calories each. Adding nuts and chocolate chips increased calories, but dividing the batch into 24 portions reduced the per-unit calories.

Post-recipe thoughts
If making similar squares and using cake mix, for the "molten" caramel, I'd try a spoonable caramel ice cream topping like they use for sundaes. "Smucker's" prominently comes up in Google for ice cream toppings, even without using Smucker's for a search term. These Smucker images are making my mouth water!

Minty Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies

My previous recipe (Choco Cranberry Sauce Cake Mix Cupcakes) used cake mix powder that I sifted white and chocolate flavors together, using half of the mixture. This recipe uses the other half of the powder. My cooky recipes are almost all about using cake mixes because of convenience. Using cake mix in cooky making is more complex than using refrigerated cooky dough, but easier than blending soft butter into cooky powder mix. Furthermore, cake mixes come in more varieties and provide more options for the imagination.

Winter time seems to bring out inclinations for something minty. Do something different than chocolate chip cookies—make the chips mint! One year, I found mint-green chips, which I haven't seen lately. This year, I ran across Andes Creme de Menthe baking chips, which have chocolate and mint-green stripes. Did not know until now that Tootsie owns Andes.

Note: Both Tootsie and Amazon offer up Andes Creme de Menthe baking chips, but their prices are WAY more expensive than the local supermarket price.

Besides using chips with varying mint strengths, have the dough flavors meet in the middle—half vanilla-ey and half chocolatey. If you'd rather not commit to buying one box each of white and chocolate mixes, buy a marble cake mix and mix the powders together. My recipe for Diff Kinda Choco-chip Cake Mix Cookies includes marble cake mix, chocolate chips, and coconut.

Onto the recipe details!

My pixstrip shows the following image areas:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients
3. Combo pic:
   1. Mixed eggs and oil
   2. Mixture of eggs, oil, and cake mix
   3. Dough, with chips stirred in
4. Raw dough in pan
5. Baked cookies in pan
6. Flipped cookies on a cooling rack
7. Cooled cookies on a plate

Implements

• Cooky pan(s)
• Pastry blender
• Mixing bowl
• Measuring cup
• Spoon for measuring out cooky dough
• Spatula for scraping dough onto pan
• Cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies (not shown—forgot for preprep pic)
• Cooling rack for done cookies

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 box chocolatey cake mix (I used half fudgy chocolate and half white.)
• 5 oz mint chips (I used Andes Creme de Menthe baking chips.)
• 5 oz chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the oil and eggs.
3. Use the pastry blender to stir the cake mix powder into the wet ingredients.
4. Stir the chips into the dough. (I might have saved a little energy if I had combined both kinds of chip together first.)
5. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
6. Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. (For slightly flatter cookies, slightly flatten the shaped dough rounds with the measuring cup.)
7. Bake for about 9 to 10 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
8. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

The yield was 57 cookies, amounting to ~65 calories each. YMMV

Recipe Deviation Suggestions
If trying out this recipe, advanced deviations include the following modifications:

• If you want to buy only one box of cake mix instead of two for making up half chocolatey and half white dough. buy marble cake mix and sift the powders together.
• For more mintiness, use all mint chips instead of half mint and half chocolate chips. If you want to be really gutsy, you can add some mint extract into the wet ingredients before mixing the powders in.