Pt 2 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Closer Looks

 

"Pt 1 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Not One-at-a-Time Dolloping" primarily describes using a cooky press to push out chocolate chip cooky dough. As presses don't gracefully dispense dough having add-ins, my method incorporates a DIY food bottle funnel. Let's look more closely.

Closer Looks at Cooky Presses

I looked on the web for a means to push out chocolate chip dough. I spotted some presses that included piping nozzles in addition to dough disks. Amazon displayed a few such devices, the magic find word being "biscuit", which British commonly refer to stateside "cookies" Another site is Ebay. Weirdly, seems many US companies sell cooky presses and icing decorator guns separately.

I actually own Wilton Dessert Decorator Pro Stainless Steel Cake Decorating Tool So far, I tried it once, thinking I could pipe nice angel food cakelets. Big fail, as the oven temperature totally collapsed the edges. Interesting discovery: the screw-on collar fits my Wilton cooky press. Some day I'll try the decorator collar with my press and see about squeeze-triggering chocolate chip cooky dough.

Funnel Formations

The following slides from "Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Not One-at-a-Time Dolloping" video explain just about everything needed to DIY cooky press funnels.

In the cooky dough dispensing stage (squeeze trigger, pinch dollop, deposit), I decided to skip on trying the soda bottle funnel. I favored the other two because the diameters were bigger, and the distances from dough tube to spout were shorter.

Mini and Regular Chocolate Chips

For thIs recipe, I've used most of the same type dough. I varied on using mini chocolate chips for one batch, and regular chocolate chips for the other. Notice side-by-side contrast for size and quantity between them.

"How Many Chocolate Chips in a Cup? (standard, mini, jumbo, & chunks)" contrasts quantities of chocolate chips per cup portions depending on the size of the chips. Minis are much smaller than regulars—"About 6½ mini semi-sweet chocolate chips equal 1 morsel-sized chocolate chip."

"How to Measure Chocolate Chips Correctly (2022)" further states: "Chocolate chips are measured by weight, volume, or count. The most accurate way to measure chocolate chips is to weigh them on a kitchen scale."

A related link is "How Many Chocolate Chips in a Tablespoon? (Depends on chip size)" provides details about factors that affect counts, including molds, ingredient variations and chocolate type. The table lists "1 Tablespoon (14 grams)". My mini chips bag (Nestle) lists one serving as 1 T (14 g), 70 calories. My regular chip bag (Hill Country Fare) lists one serving as 1 T (15 g), 70 calories.

The article shows a table for chips per tablespoon (14 grams). The minis count is 135, and the regular chips (standard) count is 28. Thus, a mini weighs a smidge more than .1 gram, and a standard weighs .5 gram.

More Chocolate Chip Nibbles

"0.1-3g Chocolate Chips Making Machine Fully Automatic" looks to be a marketing site that describes a chip-making machine's capabilities, with spec overviews. I'm thinking the machine is likely able to make chips as small as minis. FWIW, I never see fractions or tolerances for grams in nutrition tables.

"How are Chocolate Chips Made in a Factory? 4 Steps" summarizes the chip-making process that starts with melting the ingredients together and ending with creating the morsels. Both sites have the same embedded YT video of the machine in action.

"How Hershey's Chocolate Is Made and Packaged HD" shows interesting details for variety of their products., especially WRT mass manufacturing and packaging.

Cooky Bitefuls

I got curious about cooky mass production. Lookit those cookies go!

• "How It's Made: Chocolate Chip Cookies" provides details about "puck" dimensions and baking time near the 4-minute mark.
• "COOKIES PLANT" starts showing dispensing (extruding) pieces onto trays starting about 1:25 (6 rows). Note some nozzles rotate to form some cooky types. About 3:10, the shows wire-cut drop cookies.
• "TerraSana visits cookie factory" provides an an abbreviated look at huge-quantity cooky production.

Potentially Squishy Calories Calculations

The calorie counts were problematic for this recipe primarily because of stats for chocolate chips. Nutrition tables for my bags of mini chocolate chips and regular chocolate chips stated calories per tablespoon. One brand stated a tablespoon as 15 grams, and another brand stated a tablespoon as 14 grams. Formulation can affect stats. Imho, gram weights and small serving sizes for items as teeny as chocolate chips can leave lots of room for inaccuracies.

The stats in the Calories and Sodium section in "Pt 1 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Not One-at-a-Time Dolloping" is theoretical. I don't really know how much tolerance is in gram weights per tablespoon. Another big factor in stats "slop" is the size of my cookies. They're not factory-made exact; some are undersized, some oversized. All were yummy!

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"Pt 1 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Not One-at-a-Time Dollopin"

"Pt 2 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Closer Looks"

"Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies"

View more cooky recipes.

Pt 1 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Not One-at-a-Time Dolloping

 

Cooky press users, use your press to pump out chocolate chip dough by using a DIY funnel made from the top of a food bottle. Dough scoopers and other one-at-a-time dollopers, you can reduce the tedium and repetitive travel between dough bowl and pan. Squeeze the press trigger, pinch/deposit dollop, move to another spot on pan, repeat.

 

Rec: Use cake mix cooky dough for ease and doability. View the video for the recipe start to finish and guidance for making and using your own funnels.

At the end of April, I published "Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies", my go-to cooky dough recipe using cake mix, oil, eggs, and chocolate chips. The actual base dough is without chips, and suitable for using a cooky press.

For thIs recipe, I've replicated most of the dough. I varied on using mini chocolate chips for one batch, and regular chocolate chips for the other. Notice side-by-side contrast for size and quantity between them.

Funnelling Cooky Dough with Cooky Press

At the end of May, I published "Pt 1 Revisiting Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies, Plain and Chocochip Batch". By the time I got to dollopingthe second pan, I wearied of scooping, and used an icing spatula to shape mostly squares. An idea for less tedious dolloping percolated—a funnelly attachment.

The main process difference from my previous cake mix cooky dough recipe is dispensing, using a cooky press and funnels made from tops of food bottles. Each DIY funnel shape has a larger end that fits between a cooky press dough tube and screw-on collar, with the narrow end aimed toward the pan.

Cooky Press, in Case You Don't Have One But Might Consider One

Typical cooky presses come with stenciled disks (often seasonal themes) for fast, consistent-size dough dispensing. Chocolate chips are no-gos because they're oversized for the stencil openings. BTW, cooky press mechanisms tend not to be strong enough for oatmeal cooky doughs or similarly thick doughs.

Seems many cooky presses resemble each other for looks and functions. I myself have "wilton preferred press cookie press", but don't remember when I got it. Some disks look different than ones I have.

Two articles with images/videos that show my use of cooky press:

• "A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch"
• "Kool-Aided Cake Mix Cookies Combo Batch" 

Some resources for cooky presses:

• "Tips on Buying and Using a Cookie Press"
• "How to Use a Cookie Press"
• "How to Use a Cookie Press"
• "Best Cookie Presses for Thick Dough: Buyer’s Guide for 2022"

If you get really hot to trot on speed and ease, electric cooky presses are available.

Calories and Sodium

This recipe's numbers are very similar to the ones in "Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies". The yield for that recipe was 40 (from using a scoop and icing spatula for dolloping).

This recipe using DIY funnels for dispensing yielded 55 cookies, 28 in the first half batch, and 27 in the second half batch. The caloric totals deviated from the previous recipe because, this time, I adopted nutrition table info from the chocolate chip package.

Actually, another wrinkle is having obtained 28 cookies in the mini chips batch and 27 in the regular chips batch. If I'd been smarter about the eventual dolloping, I would have eked out one more dollop for the latter batch.

Dividing the dough for 2 batches:
Calories = 2715/2 = 1357 C for each half batch
Sodium = 3020/2 = 1510 mg for each half batch

Mini chocolate chip cookie yield: 28
Calories: 1357 + 567 = 1924 divided by 28 cookies = 69C/cooky
Sodium: 1510mg/28 cookies = 54mg/cooky

Regular chocolate chip cooky yield: 27
Calories: 1357 + 530 = 1887 divided by 27 cookies= 70C/cooky
Sodiurm 1510mg/27 cookies = 56mg/cooky

For the regular chocolate chip cookies, if I had squeezed out 28 instead of 27, calculations would have been easier. In any case, the numbers would have been 67C and 54mg sodium.

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"Pt 1 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Not One-at-a-Time Dollopin"

"Pt 2 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Closer Looks"

"Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies"

View more cooky recipes.

Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies

 

How low effort are these cookies? Only four ingredients, for starters. The cake mix itself conveniently includes the flour, sugar, and leavening. (I prefer yellow cake mix because of the psychological color of eggs and butter, but other mixes also work.) You mix eggs and oil together, mix in the powder, and fold in the chips. Dispense, bake, cool.

The video shows still images and clips for the steps. Note: The cookies are doable using a pastry blender, but a tilt-head mixer cuts down on elbow grease.

One instruction I've seen in many cooky recipes is chilling the dough, from an hour to a few days. Fuggetaboutit for my recipe! Another skippable item is parchment paper. Cake mix cookies have never stuck to my baking pans, except once when I tried using a Trader Joe's cake mix.

One other item I took a leap of faith in skipping--pressing the dough dollops flat, sometimes using fingers, other times using a glass. Without extra help, the dollops (using 1 1/2 T cooky scoop, level fill) expanded and spread during baking, but not too wide.

Dough Dispensing

A cooky scoop works same as a spring-release ice cream scoop, but faster than tablespoon-and-spatula method of scoop cough with one hand and push with spatula using the other hand.

After I had baked the cookies, I searched on the web for fast dollop dispensing. "The fastest way to scoop drop cookies" showed me that I've been really pokey. When she used two spoons, she dispensed 15 cookies in 1:34. When she used a 1-teaspoon cooky scoop, she dispensed 15 in 54 seconds. BTW, she shows her 1-teaspoon baked cooky as a 2 1/4" wide. My baked cookies were about as wide, but taller, I think. YMMV.

My smoothing dough against a spatula to flatten the dough before dispensing was slow. Method 1 (using side of bowl for flattening dough) in "How to Scoop Cookie Dough" shows a more streamlined method. Method 2 is much slower with 2nd hand handling. Useful info is seeing that the dough handler uses food gloves, which seems to help keep fingers dough-free.

View the image of different dollops and scoops, accompanied by helpful info for size and capacity. Another good resource for cooky scoops is "12 Best Cookie Scoops in 2022 – Reviews and Buying Guide", which also includes a table that summarizes brands and characteristics. "How to use baking cookie scoop [ Cake Decorating For Beginners ]" provides good info about five portion scoops for batters and various cooky types. The size numbers refer to the number of scoops obtainable from a quart-size container.

Baking and Results

The yield was 40 cookies. Tasty, soft, chewy! I wondered why they were perfect for softness and chewiness, compared to some of my other chocolate chip cooky variations. The web listed several results WRT chewy cookies. One suggested ingredient was cornstarch. Not much, but enough to affect dough. "From What Does Cornstarch Do in Cookies? (Plus Simple Substitutes to Use in a Pinch)":

Cornstarch isn’t used as a thickening agent in cookies, but it does have a very important purpose. When a recipe calls for cornstarch, it’s basically going to be there to help provide structure. ... Certain types of cookies are meant to be very chewy, and cornstarch is a common ingredient in those.

The cake mix box did list cornstarch. I also recall a trend awhile back of cake mix companies touting the addition of pudding mix. A main ingredient of pudding is cornstarch. Another ingredient some sites list for chewy cookies is brown sugar. The box did not list that. Thus, I infer that the cornstarch contributed to the texture.

Calories and Sodium

These rich-tasting cookies are 98 calories each, fewer than the 139 each in "Triple Choco Granola Cereal Cookies".

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"Pt 1 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Not One-at-a-Time Dollopin"

"Pt 2 Cooky Pressing Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Closer Looks"

"Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies"

View more cooky recipes.

Triple Choco Granola Cereal Cookies

I've long wanted to make a granola variety chocolate chip cookies using H-E-B Select Ingredients Triple Chocolate Granola. That cereal is yummy, and cookies sound like a handy way to skip the bowl of milk. Not a milk-and-cookies type myself, maybe others might take a shine to the idea. Poking around the web, one prospective recipe was "Granola Cereal Cookies".

The list of ingredients looked reasonably short and simple. Some comments looked like good suggestions for deviation, such as using granulated sugar instead of brown sugar, and oil instead of butter. I'm more partial to granulated sugar; easy to pour. As for oil for fat, butter is twice to triple the cost of oil for similar quantity. (Butter seems to be the most common fat for cooky recipes.)

I further deviated by reducing the sugar. I figure the cereal already has plenty of it. As the cereal is already a finished product, I also skipped the vanilla and additional chocolate chips. The video is a slide show for baking these chocolatey chippy granola cookies. The process is intended for those who have cooky preparation experience. You should know about recipe utensils and equipment, ingredients, recipe steps, and reading between lines. Note: The cookies are doable using a pastry blender, but a tilt-head mixer cuts down on elbow grease.

Dough Dispensing

I used a 1 1/2T cooky scoop. The first panful took 7 minutes, the subsequent cookies much longer. A few dollops tended to fall apart upon dispensing--not enough dough to act as "glue". Or too much cereal for dough amount. Adjustment for future batches would be to lessen the amount of cereal by maybe 3/4 C.

Baking and Results

The yield was 39 cookies. They were tasty, but crunchier than I preferred. Also, small pieces tended to crumble off upon chompdown. A main reason for crunchiness is baking at higher temperature and longer than necessary. Cookies continue to bake with residual heat from the goodies and also the pan. I baked at 375 for 11 minutes each batch. Google search results for "why are my cookies hard when they cool" provide insight. I'm leaning more towards temperature and time being the reasons for my outcome. Adjustment for future batches would be to set the oven for 350, and bake between 9 1/2 to 10 minutes.

Calories and Sodium

I was mildly surprised to see the cookies calculated for 139 calories each. I chalk that high number to the granola cereal already loaded with calories. Also, dispensing might have been easier if I had more dough base or less cereal. Maybe I could have squeezed out a few more cookies for the session for the same total calories.

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I've made numerous batches of cookies over years. Want to see more?

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.

Mini-cupcake Offload: Pan Type & Prep, Batter Amt

In case the blog article title seems oddly abbreviated, my intent is to minimize the number of characters but still convey the topic, related to my previous article about offloading fudge. For that experiment, I contrasted spray oil vs. spray oil and powdered sugar for offloading fudge, using mini-cupcake silicone and aluminum pans. That dessert requires no baking, thus, use of powdered sugar for prepping some of the pan cavities.

Initially, my experimentation idea this time was using liner papers for mini-cupcakes after baking them. The first time I tried a mini-cupcake recipe and used a silicone pan, I poured the batter into paper-lined cavities. The paper boundaries, nearly vertical, were more challenging for avoiding spills at edges. The baked cakes were instantly and easily removable. Unfortunately, some cake tend to stick to the papers, lessening the edible amount.

So, this time around, was going to only contrast spray oil vs. spray oil and flour in baking Choco Cherry Choco Chip mini-cupcakes. But then, I also wanted to see how well mini-cupcake paper liners fit the baked cakes if I varied the amount of batter—underfill (level tablespoonful) and common fill (rounded tablespoonful).

I had intended on using only silicone pans, After prepping and one of them and putting it in the oven, it occurred to me that the baking process was going to take a lot longer if I switch out several pans' worth. So, I pulled out the aluminum pans and prepped and filled them also. The second oven batch took aa bit of arranging and rearranging, with the second silicone pan and three aluminum pans. I balanced one metal pan on an oven rack ledge and another pan's edge.

The original recipe I modified for the mini-cupcakes is Cherry Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cake. Lucky Leaf pushed its canned pie filling.

A more elaborate recipe that uses chocolate cake mix is Chocolate Cherry Cake, but the baker uses the chocolate chips for the frosting and none in the cake itself.

An extremely elaborate recipe is from SugarWinzy—Cherry Chocolate Chip Layer Cake. Her one-off recipe for cupcakes is Chocolate Chip Cherry Cupcakes. My eyes glazed over from the number of ingredients and artistry.

The simplest recipe would have been using only one flavor of cake mix, but I wanted my batch to be more like milk chocolate cake. Ingredients from the Lucky Leaf recipe and my deviations:

1 16.25-ounce box white cake mix (I used 1/2 box *each* of chocolate and white cake mixes.)
3 eggs
1 21-ounce can LUCKY LEAF Regular or Premium Cherry Pie Filling (I used a different brand.)
1 cup mini chocolate chips (I used regular size chips.)

Instead of using either a bundt cake or oblong pan, I used the silicone and aluminum mini-cupcake pans, baking at 350 for only about 16 minutes each batch. I also skipped the icing part of the recipe. I considered the cakes (yield of 84) to be sweet enough naked, with less work, fewer ingredients, fewer calories.

The spray-oil only method of prepping the pans resulted in fewer instances of cakes sticking to pans than using both spray oil and flour. Originally, I wondered if the papers might be undersized with the bigger post-baked cakes. I was happy to see that the papers hugged well. Maybe the pleats of the sides help accommodate mini-cupcakes for perimeter and volume. The baking session yielded 84 mini-cupcakes.

Try the "Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes" recipe. Besides putting in a pixstrip for step-by-step instructions, I also talked about muffin vs. cupcake. Also visit Square Mini and Whoopie Muffin Experiment, the recipe where I contrast square mini-muffins and whoopie muffins for shape.

Diff Kinda Choco-chip Cake Mix Cookies

Last month, I published the PC cake mix cookies recipe—featuring pecans and coconut, and using French Vanilla cake mix as the dry ingredient base. This time, I thought about a familiar, yet different cooky recipe, using my standard cake mix recipe. One variation of chocolate chip cookies is using half white cake mix and half fudge or chocolate cake mix.

In the distant past, I used to buy Jiffy Cake Mix, one white and one chocolate, and mix them together. (Each Jiffy box holds 9 ounces of powder, about half the amount of regular cake mix.) The Jiffy website alludes to less availability of their products in stores than the company prefers, although it does have a webpage for online shopping.

Hmm, the cartoon carton reminds me of Justin Timberlake in the SNL Veganville skit, looking like a pink brick of tofu. Anyway, as my supermarket did not carry Jiffy cake mixes, I thought I might buy one of each full-size mixes, weigh, mix half and half, and save the other halves for something in the future.

I spotted Duncan Hines' marble cake mix and decided to buy that powder instead—one box of mix instead of two. The box contains one main sack of white cake mix and a small pouch of chocolate powder mixture.

My pixstrip shows the ingredients on the left (powder mixes, coconut, chocolate chips, eggs, oil), baked cookies in the middle, and cooled and stacked cookies on the right.

Implements

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

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 C cooking oil (I replaced 1 T with sesame oil.)
• 1 18ish oz. marble cake mix (I used Duncan HInes brand.)
• 1 C flaked coconut (I broke up the bigger, stuck clumps.)
• 1 C chocolate chips

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 white cake and chocolate powders into the coconut, using the pastry blender to blend together.
4. In a bowl or large cup, combine the oil and eggs. 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. Fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough. Shape to rounded, level, or concave height.
8. Drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. Slightly press the lumps with the bottom of the measuring cup for flatter cookies. OK, be lazier and press down with palm or fingers together.
9. Bake for about 10 to 11 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
10. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack. These cookies don't actually require much coaxing to loosen them from the pan.

Shaping the dough slightly concave yielded 52 cookies, same number as the pecan coconut cookies. The calories amount is a bit more—78 for these, 82 for the PCs. However, 4 calories per cooky difference isn't a lot to fuss about.

The following table shows the effect of including or excluding chips, coconut, or both. Note that omitting both chips and coconut result in the grand calorie savings of 25 per cookie. Can you stop at one?

Ingredient, calories	Version
	A	B	C	D
cake mix powders, 2040	✔	✔	✔	✔
2 eggs, 140	✔	✔	✔	✔
1/3 C oil, 533	✔	✔	✔	✔
1 C coconut, 560	✔	✔	—	—
1 C chocolate chips, 800	✔	—	✔	—
batch (52), total calories	4073	3273	3513	2713
calories per cookie	~78	~62	~68	~52

One closing remark about this cooky recipe—the coconut didn't come through as prominently as I expected. A redo with adding coconut extract might enhance it more. Maybe fuggetabout coconut altogether.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

• PC Cookies (pecans and coconut as featured add-ins)
• Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies
• Cake Mix Macaroon Cookies (similar recipe with more process details, using fewer dry ingredients and more wet ingredients
• A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter
• A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch [Valentine]

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Mini-muffins

This snack is a hybrid of chocolate chip cookies and muffins—a long-time favorite cooky, but softer, and in a smaller, bite-size shape. The cooks.com recipe that I derived my recipe from does not provide the size of muffin pans to use or the expected yield. Fortunately, I have enough experience in baking to infer some unstated information.

• The amount of fluid and flour (+ oatmeal) looked to be enough to equal about one box of cake mix.
• The stated baking time of 22 minutes seemed appropriate for normal cupcake size.

Recipe deviations from the cooks.com recipe
I tend to deviate from recipes that I try out. For instance, I might substitute an ingredient that I have on hand. Deviations and disclosures follow.

• Granulated sugar instead of brown sugar
  (If you'd rather use brown sugar and find yours is brick-hard, you can use the info in my oatmeal cooky recipe for resoftening it.)
• Replacement of 1/8 of oil with sesame oil
  I had hoped to add a nutty flavor, but the nuttiness didn't seem apparent in the results.
• Regular-sized chocolate chips instead of mini-chips
• Mini-cupcake pans and paper liners, baking the batter for 17 minutes instead of 22
• Double-recipe batch, which yielded 72 mini-muffins.
  I made enough to tote to two events that coincidentally occurred on the same day—a workplace potluck lunch and an evening professional organization meeting.

My pixstrip shows five image areas:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients (dry, wet, and chocolate chips)
3. Batter in pans
4. Baked mini-muffins on cooling rack
5. Baked mini-muffins in goodies tin

Implements

• large mixing bowl
• medium small mixing bowl
• mini-cupcake pans
• mini-cupcake paper liners
• pastry blender
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• additional spoon for ladling batter if desired
• rubber spatula(s)
• cooling rack for done mini-muffins

Ingredients

• Dry
• 2 2/3 C flour
• 2 C uncooked oats
• 2/3 C granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• Wet
• 2 C milk
• 1/2 C oil
• 2 eggs
• 12 oz chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place mini-cupcake paper liners into each mini-cupcake cavity.
3. Pour the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl, using the pastry blender to blend well.
4. In the smaller bowl, mix the wet ingredients.
5. Pour the mixed wet ingredients into the larger bowl and stir the ingredients until they're moistened.
6. Stir the chocolate chips into the batter.
7. Scoop about a rounded spoonful of batter into each paper-lined well, about 2/3 to 3/4 full. (I filled two batches of 36 wells. YMMV.)
8. Bake for about 17 minutes or until the mini-muffins are lightly browned. (Use toothpick test for doneness if desired.)
9. Transfer the baked mini-muffins onto cooling rack.

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites

My convenient cooky recipe this time is my third one using cake mix. The other two have Valentine's Day and Easter themes. The German Chocochip Bites evoke German chocolate cake taste with predominance of chocolate, coconut, and pecans. The recipe yields about 55 soft and chewy cookies.

• 1 box chocolate or devil's food cake mix
• 1 can coconut pecan frosting
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 6 oz. chocolate chips
• 2 eggs

Note: The stated weight for a standard-size box of cake mix is 18.25 ounces.

The following baking equipment required:

• cooky pan(s)
• pastry blender
• bowl
• measuring cup
• measuring spoon(s)
• small rubber spatula
• cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• cooling rack for done cookies

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Pour the cake mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
3. In a bowl or large cup, combine the melted butter, eggs, and frosting.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough so it looks more than rounded and less than heaping (about a 4-teaspoon measure).
7. Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
8. Bake for about 13 minutes.
9. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

If you want to make smaller cookies but more of them, level off the tablespoons of dough instead of rounding them. Bake for about 10 minutes instead of 13.

Note: My German Chocochip Bites cooky is an adaptation of a foodista recipe for Coconut Pecan Cookies, which calls for 4 ingredients: yellow cake mix, coconut pecan frosting mix, melted butter, and eggs.