Betty Crocker Butter Pecan Cake Mix Cookies, MImicking La Moderna Marianita Cookies

It'd been awhile since I'd baked cookies using cake mix. Betty Crocker caught my eye with the Butter Pecan cake flavor. The sale price of $1 was compelling. I tried to duplicate La Moderna Marianita pecan flavor cookies, cheap at about 68 cents for a roll of 28 cookies (6.5 ounces).

The Marianita cookies are crunchy and don't contain actual pecans. The flavor has a hint of pecan nut skins, smidge of bitter aftertaste. For attempting crunchiness, I had hoped baking at 325, not 350, and baking cookies longer than typical cookies would work. I also hoped that the BC's reduced amount of powder (from 15.25 to 13.25 oz) wouldn't affect the outcome.

Wellll, the lessons learned for the next time will be to raid some other cake mix box for two ounces of powder to add to the recipe. The dough didn't firm up like in other cake mix cooky dough. It was stickier and harder to load into my cooky press and dispense. Also, next time, I'll try baking the cookies at least 13 to 14 minutes. Sure, I like soft and chewy, but I was trying to obtain the Marianita crunchiness.

View the video for step-by-step process. See the final image for comparison of a plateful each of BC Butter Pecan cake mix cookies and La Moderna Marianita pecan flavor cookies.

Making cookies at home take way more time and energy than buying shelf-stable store cookies. Be sure to block out time for gathering ingredients, equipment, mixing, dispensing, baking, and cooling. Oh, yeah, remember cleanup time and effort!

Cookies and other wheat-dominant products have gotten pricey over time. On the good side, the ingredients for the project came to less than $2: $1 for box of cake mix, 29 cents for 1/3 C oil, and 50 cents for 2 eggs. The yield was 42 cookies. FWIW, cookies baked at home seem to take longer to consume than store-bought. More appreciation for the effort expended? Definitely tastier!

Calories and Sodium

As a side thought, I considered adding chocolate chips. Doing so would have added extra calories (~30C/cooky) and cost ($1.50 additional for project). Mmmm, butter pecan flavor with chocolate chips! Related: "Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies" (article, video)

La Moderna Resources

La Moderna cookies are a niche item at HEB. I've not been inclined to seek other products from this Mexico-based company. Memory aid that Moderna is one of the big-name Covid-19 vaccines.

• La Moderna manufactures pasta and soups as well as cookies. Amusingly, La La Maderna's cooky page does not include the pecan flavored ones.
• "La Moderna Marianitas Cookies", 71 cents for 6.5 oz Nutrition info claims 6 servings, 5 cookies per serving. I counted 28 cookies.
• "La Moderna Pecan Marianitas, Authentic Mexican Pecan Cookies, Fun Snacks For Kids, 6.53 Oz, Pack Of 20"

Sweet Bakings--A Few Re-peerings

Last month, I blogged about sweet bakings, recipe undertakings spread over 13 years of blogging. Recipes I spotted on the web inspired me to experiment, not merely replicate. i came up with 28 cooky recipes and 19 cake and cake-ish recipes. For cakes, I started out mostly blogging about cupcakes and occasional mini-muffins. For cookies, I varied baking cake mix cookies but also baked scratch cookies.

Maybe surprisingly, I'd done several of the recipes seldom since blogging about them. A few never-agains are because a particular ingredient, usually a cake mix, is either no longer available, formulation is different, or weight is different (mostly less).

Specific to cake mix powder, I'd made cakes AND cake mix cookies over years to remember the standard size weighed 18.25 ounces. Manufacturers reduced the amount to 16.25 for a few years. Now it's 15.25. It's irritating about companies screwing around with powder amounts that, worse than result in smaller finished good(s), make an inferior item. Some recipes WERE perfect with 18.25 ounces of powder.

Cooky Monsterous

With "A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch" (#018), I combined Red Velvet cake mix (especially seasonal for Valentine's Day) and strawberry flavor cake mix. I'd made several batches for a few years for sharing in the workplace. Haven't made them for well over a decade.

I must have been really ambitious or patient when I did Krusteaz Choco Caramel Squares" (#139). Or I might have used a compelling coupon. Anyway, Seems that Krusteaz no longer carries my main recipe ingredient, Krusteaz Molten Deep Dish Chocolate Cookie with Caramel Center.

I noticed that I had omitted "Baking Cookies with Trader Joe Cake MIx" from my cooky recipe list. I can only guess that my results weren't great. In any case, TJ's 28-ounce Golden Yellow cake mix is no longer available. Instead, TJ sells Yellow Cake & Baking Mix, $2.99 for 16 oz. Price is double what I'd consider for name-brands Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker, or Pillsbury. BTW, I often buy my supermarket brand, comparable in quality to the name brands, and a smidge more powder (16.5 oz).

Cakes and Cupcakes and Muffins, Oh, My!

In June 2012, my first cakey recipe was "Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes" (#070). Not much of a stretch for deviating from a set recipe, but it was a start.

"Square Mini and Whoopie Muffin Experiment" (#88) was an experiment for using up two half-boxes of cake mix (Red Velvet, Strawberry) to try making muffins, and trying out two different pans. Let's just say the experiment was a been-there-done-that experience.

"Mini-cupcake Offload: Pan Type & Prep, Batter Amt" (#118) is another recipe that I made while in muffin mode, specifically mini-muffins. I might be inclined to try layer-caking it at another time. The ingredients sound tasty! The amount of cherry filling, however, sounds maybe more than necessary,. With a few cake experiments under my belt, I might be able to gauge actual amounts to use. Google can also help guide.

In 2016, I moseyed over to something bigger, to be eaten with a fork, then zebra layer cakes. It was another four years before making and documenting a layer. Did another couple more this year. Cakes are a bit more labor intensive than cookies.

I haven't baked muffins or cupcakes in a long while is because of a shifting preference for layer cakes. The longer baking times for such cakes seem to result in more moistness retention. (Cupcakes and muffins have more surface area per batch than two layers of cake.)

I have had an eye on a springform pan cake recipe "Cake in 5 minutes! You will make this cake every day. Few people cook cakes like this!". Thinking that chocolate pudding or blueberry jam in place of the orange filling might be interesting.

Serving Sizes SNit

Related to cake mix manufacturers' weight reduction is supposed number of servings. I distinctly recall that nutrition tables used to state that number of servings was 12. Now it's 10. Imho, it's a lot easier to cut a cake into 12 wedges than 10.

Meandering to barely-related topic--pizza portions. I won't name names, but one big-name pizza manufacturer states that the number of servings is 5. How easy is it to cut a pizza, whether round or square, into FIVE pieces?

---

Related:
Pt 1 Sweet Bakings--Cookies, Mostly
Pt 2 Sweet Bakings--Cakes, Cupcakes, and Mini-muffins

Pt 1 Sweet Bakings--Cookies, Mostly

I've been blogging since September 2009. I'd started out with text content, later adding images. Over the last few years, I've accompanied articles with slide shows and videos that I've posted to YouTube.

Sweets seem to have piqued me, particularly from early to mid 2010s. This year has re-piqued me. In inventorying my recipe blogs, i came up with 28 cooky recipes and 19 cake and cake-ish recipes. In the cooky-centric video, I list my blog catalog number with the article title and finished-item image (newest at top).

In musing about sweets, I'd noticed similarities and differences in topic choice and execution over the years. (For cookies, I varied baking cake mix cookies but also baked scratch cookies.)

Dough Mixing

In the beginning, I used pastry blenders for mixing. More recently, I've used a tilt-head mixer for mixing to save on elbow grease. Never going back to pastry blender. BTW, oatmeal cooky dough is the hardest to manually mix, imho.

Dough Dolloping

In the distant past, I used a cooky press or measuring spoon and spatula. More recently, I used a 1 1/3 T cooky scoop, which is a bit more convenient than spoon/spatula. Downside of either method is one-at-a-time dispensing, which also requires travel time and effort between dough bowl and pan.

Even more recently, I've tried making some disks and funnel shapes to use my cooky press. I still have more experiments. Using a cooky press saves on dough travel between dough bowl and pan.

In one of my recipes, I shaped the dough into a rough rectangle, then used a metal spatula to cut it into squarish shapes. It was easier than one-at-a-time dolloping.

Problem Dough

I've wrestled with dough that's stiff, sticky, or both. Dolloping wasn't much fun. My mind's been percolating with thoughts of spray oil and my "slice solutions brownie pan".

The pan and compartments remind me of an ice tray. I considered buying one, but they seem pricey.

OK, Not Baked Cookies

I included some fudge recipes. Although not oven-baked goods, they're sweet items anyway. I felt they were more cooky than cake because of handling handiness. Yum!

---

Related:
Pt 2 Sweet Bakings--Cakes, Cupcakes, and Mini-muffins
Sweet Bakings--A Few Re-peerings

Pt 1 Revisiting Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies, Plain and Chocochip Batch

Almost 10 years ago, I blogged "Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies". At that time, I included a few images, not having learned to make movies yet. My methodology was simpler but more labor intensive.

Back then, I used a manual pastry blender, and measuring-tablespoon-and-rubber-spatula method to dispense the dollops. This time, I used a tilt-head mixer, helpful for saving on elbow grease, and a cooky scoop for dispensing most of the dollops. (For the chocolate chip batch, I took a shortcut, flattening the dough, then dividing it with an icing spatula for most of the dollops.)

This oatmeal cooky recipe uses the minimal amount of ingredients, for those who want a nekkid cooky that has lots of oatmeal. The ingredients are simple—oatmeal, flour, baking soda, oil, eggs, and brown sugar. As a bonus, I include information for resoftening a brown sugar brick into its spoonable form.

Because I like chocolate chips in many of my cookies, I split the dough into two parts, plain oatmeal in one batch, and addition of four ounces of chocolate chips in the other batch. Tasty results, somewhat delicate. The yield was 25 for each batch. (Deviating from only scooping when dolloping the chocolate chip batch probably affected the number of cookies.)

Chocolate chips in 25 cookies: ¾ C (4 oz) contains 806 C/Cup for 604 among 25 cookies, so, 24 additional calories each chocochip oatmeal cooky. 88 + 24 → 112 C. No sodium.

Bottom line: Oatmeal-only cookies, 88 C each; oatmeal chocochip cookies, 112 C each

View the video for detailed info and process to bake the two kinds of oatmeal cookies. The process shown is not real-time, but you can see visual changes to the ingredients over time—mainly the dough increasingly dense. So glad to have my Cuisineart tilt-head mixer!

Note: Oops, I forgot to mention the oven temperature. Preheat oven 350, maybe near the end of dough mixing time(s). Baking time is about 10 minutes per batch.

---

"Pt 1 Revisiting Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies, Plain and Chocochip Batch"

"Pt 2 Revisiting Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies, Closer Looks at Process"

"Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies"

View more cooky recipes.

Kool-Aided Cake Mix Cookies Combo Batch

Around winter holiday season, chocolate-covered cherries tend to float into my consciousness. Another chocolate and cherry concoction has also been staring at me recently when I open the freezer: ice cream with cherries and chocolate chips "H-E-B Select Ingredients Creamy Creations Cherry & Chocolate Limited Edition Ice Cream". One yummy I wanted to buy so I could add chocolate chips and make cookies with is a cherry-chip cake mix. Unfortunately, have heard the supply is spotty "Betty Crocker Super Moist Cherry Chip Cake Mix".

The basic cooky recipe uses cake mix, eggs, and oil. For flavor and color enhancements, I added a package of Cherry Kool-Aid and 10 drops of red food coloring. Another cooky variation is a chocolatey covered one. BTW, I used Black Cherry Kool-Aid for my "Kool-Aided Cake", an experiment. It turned out so well that I rationalized that Kool-Aided cookies could turn out well. View the video for full details of preparing one, two, or three types of cherry-themed cookies.

While thinking about implementation, I decided that chocolate in a form or two would be interesting. My recent foray into chocolate coating and also chips with mint themes inspired me to borrow from those ideas. The intention, besides making tasty cookies, was to improve on similar processes. Additional ingredients for this combo-batch cooky recipe are red food coloring, chocolate chips, and optionally, white chocolate "bark".

Because of the nature of dough stiffness, I recommend using a tilt-head mixer. If you use a pastry blender, wire whip, or hand mixer, stamina would be helpful. Another helpful item is a cooky press for shaping and dispensing cooky dough pieces. Or you can use a tablespoon-and-spatula method.

Cooky Press Thoughts—Disks

I misplaced my Wilton cooky press container, which showed the baked cooky shapes for each disk. The images for the following models look mostly similar.

• "Preferred Press Cookie Press, 13-Piece"
• "Wilton Cookie Pro Ultra II Deluxe Cookie Press". View the useful image of the disks.
• "Wilton Cookie Pro Ultra II With 3 Bonus Disks. (20)"

Cooky Press Thoughts—Dispenser Trigger Squeezes

Using 1 1/2 trigger squeezes of the cooky press yields suitable size cookies.

• "A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch"
• "Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter"

For the cookies for "Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 4, Choco Unadorned/Coated Minty Cookies", I used two trigger squeezes per cooky. I think the heavier cooky made chocolatey dipping more awkward and used a lot more coating. The yield was fewer than I liked. I'll use 1 1/2 trigger squeezes when using a cooky press.

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 5, Choco Minty Sandwich Cookies

These cookies are actually Plan B use of remaining unadorned mint chocolate cookies from "Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 4, Choco Unadorned/Coated Minty Cookies". I had run out of melted chocolate after having coated only about one-third of my 40 cookies. It wasn't until the third day that I thought about gussying up uncoated ones. Hmmm, I didn't have spare frosting, but had ingredients for buttercream frosting.

My buttercream frosting recipe called for 3 cups of powdered sugar and typical additional ingredients. "Vanilla Buttercream Frosting". And rather than making pedestrian sandwich cookies, I added 7 drops of blue food coloring to the frosting. Why blue? Eh, I didn't notice that the cap was blue instead of green until I mixed up the frosting. Maybe weirdly, the color looks more mint green than baby blue.

I had only 19 unadorned cookies remaining. I dispensed 1 T frosting each for 10 cookies, mated them with 9 others. (I indulged and ate the single cookie with excess frosting. Yum!) Yield: 9 ~3" diameter sandwich cookies (each ~2 ounces, 255 calories), and one oddball (~ 190 calories)

Note: For future possible sandwich cookies from cake mix recipe that yields 40 cookies, an entire 16-ounce can of spreadable frosting might be enough for 20 sandwiches.

How did I decide the amount of frosting per cooky sandwich? From experimentation with these ~ 3" diameter unadorned cookies, I felt one tablespoon of frosting filled in well.

Musing: Oreo Mint Creme Chocolate Sandwich Cookies are similar to the cookies I made. Mine are bigger, and softer and easier to take small bites of.

---

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

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 4, Choco Unadorned/Coated Minty Cookies

My journey started out as intent to make chocolate-covered mint-flavored chocolate cookies. Such examples are Girl Scout Thin MInts, Hill Country Fare Fudge Mint Cookies, and Fudge Mint Cookies (Back to Nature brand).

This cooky recipe uses cake mix, eggs, oil, mint extract, and chocolate chips. The ingredients and methodology are very similar to "Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 3, Spearymintal Choco Chip Cookies". The biggest differences are the cake mix flavor and chocolate chip use.

I visited mostly video sites for melting chocolate and also methodology for coating the cookies. I bought a dipping tongs gadget. Some unknowns going in:

• Cautions about melting process (temperature, durations, microwave vs. double boiler)
• Number of cookies I'd get from my favorite cake mix cooky recipe
• Tablespoon-and-spatula dispensing of dough vs. cooky press
• Baking time—chocolate cookies not as easy to spot browning edges
• Amount of chocolate for coating the cookies—enough vs. too much

The yield was 40 baked cookies. The 12 ounces of melted chocolate chips was nowhere enough—only 12 cookies well-coated and 2 half-topped. Why'd I so badly underestimate the amount of chocolate I needed?

• My inexperience (clumsiness) with coating methodology and failure to revisit sites on baking day
• Too-late thoughts about scraping excess chocolate back into bowl, resulting in overcloaked cookies
• Fear of breaking cookies while coating, thus, handling them gingerly during dipping and transporting

What happened to the 26 unadorned cookies? Most of the remaining cookies wound up in my Plan B sandwich cookies that I didn't think of until three days later. Visit "Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 5, Choco Minty Sandwich Cookies" for details.

On to the cooky making!

Implements

• Pastry blender or electric mixer
• Bowls for mixing wet ingredients
• Bowl for mixing dough
• Rubber spatulas
• Cooky spatula
• Cooky pan(s)
• Cooling rack(s)
• Spoons
• Dipping tongs
• Parchment paper
• Measuring spoons
• Resting plate

Ingredients

• 1 box of chocolaty cake mix
• 1/3 to 3/8 cup of oil (I forgot that my standard recipe uses 1/3 cup. Results were acceptable.)
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 teaspoon of mint extract
• Chocolate chips or other chocolate form for coating (Note: I severely underestimated the amount of chocolate I needed. I managed to coat only about 1/3 of the baked cookies.)

Dough Process (Using Pastry Blender or Electric Mixer for Combining)

For mixing this few-ingredients cooky dough, I used a manual pastry blender. For parceling out the dough onto baking pan, I initially used the method of measuring spoon and spatula, then switched to a cooky press. A cooky press is fast if the dough is single-texture consistent. It's not appropriate if the dough has chocolate chips, nuts, or other items too big to fit through smallish disk holes.

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Mix oil, eggs and mint extract in a large bowl. (Most of the times, I usually break each egg separately into the bowl before adding the other wet ingredients.)
3. Mix in the cake mix.
4. Parcel out tablespoons of dough onto pan, leaving ~1" margins for baking expansion.
5. Bake each batch for up to 7 minutes. (Because the dough is chocolate, checking for browning edges is not helpful.)
6. Cool for ~ 2 minutes before using cooky spatula to transfer them onto cooling rack(s).

Chocolate Coating Process

1. Set aside a large surface for this process. It's also helpful to have a plate for resting dipping tongs, spoon, or fork for handling the cookies.
2. Lay out parchment paper for laying chocolate-dipped cookies onto.
3. Melt chocolate chips or other chocolate forms in a medium bowl until syrupy.
4. Coat each cooky separately, lightly scraping excess chocolate before transferring onto paper.
5. Carefully pull parchment sheet or partial sheets of coated cookies onto rack or pan, and place inside fridge to cool and harden the chocolate.

How long before melted chocolate sets? From "Chocolate-Dipped Cookies"—"Refrigerate until the chocolate just sets, 10 to 15 minutes." From looking at my camera's pic date stamps of cooky refrigeration and bringing them back to the kitchen island, 40 minutes passed. (I probably did some other task during that time.)

Resources for Melting Chocolate and Dipping Items

• "Dipping Cookies, Pretzels, Cherries in Chocolate"
• "Dipping Cookies, Pretzels, Cherries in Chocolate Part-2"
• "How to melt chocolate in microwave : How to melt chocolate"
• "How to Melt Chocolate, the Right Way! - Kitchen Conundrums with Thomas Joseph"
  This site provides corrective action if the chocolate misbehaves in the melting process.

Cooky Stats

Yield: 40 ~3" diameter unadorned cookies
 12 fully coated (each ~2 ounces, 189 calories)
 2 half-coated (each ~1 1/4 ounces, 129 calories)
 26 unadorned (each ~2/3 ounce, 65 calories)

Note: I used a cooky spatula to divide the coated cookies.

---

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

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 3, Spearymintal Choco Chip Cookies

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)

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. 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.)
3. Mix in the cake mix.
4. Fold in the chips.
5. Dole out tablespoons of dough onto pan, leaving ~1" margins for baking expansion. (I use the measuring spoon with rubber spatula method.)
6. Bake each batch for ~ 10 minutes, checking for browning at edges.
7. 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

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 2, Nose 4 Mints N Chips

My mind percolated about making cookies that would integrate yellow cake mix, mini chocolate chips, mint extract, and blue food coloring. This cooky should resemble mint chocolate chip ice cream. I became curious about some of my ingredients.

Shelf life of food coloring? Shelf life of mint extract? What kind of mint is in my extract? Difference between peppermint and spearmint? Difference between peppermint oil and peppermint extract? How much extract to use? How much food coloring? Use blue instead of green? Amount of chocolate chips?

Shelf Life of Food Coloring

"Does Food Coloring Go Bad? How Long Does Food Coloring Last?" answers, "shelf life of food coloring is almost indefinite. Food coloring does not have raw ingredients in them that can go bad."

Shelf life of Mint Extract

"MINT EXTRACT, PURE, COMMERCIALLY BOTTLED — UNOPENED OR OPENED" answers, "Properly stored, mint extract will generally stay at best quality for about 3 to 4 years."

I'd written my "Minty Choco Chip Pudding" recipe article awhile back, so I wondered about the extract's safety and potency. Still Tasty site's info:

How can you tell if mint extract is still good? Mint extract typically loses flavor over time - if the extract develops an off odor, flavor or appearance, it should be discarded.

I did a sniff test after noting that the fluid was transparent. Yup, strongly minty!

Peppermint, Spearmint, Oils, Extracts

For this article, I'm emphasizing more about the cookies than mint. Visit "Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts" for sections where I contrast peppermint vs spearmint, and peppermint oil vs extract. BTW, my bottle of "McCormick® Pure Mint Extract" lists both spearmint and peppermint oils, along with water and 89% alcohol.

Ideas for the Cooky Recipe Extract, Food Coloring

A recent discussion with a friend about mint chocolate cookies spurred me to consider making a batch. A little uncertainty about seeing obvious doneness for chocolate cooky dough got me to thinking of using a lighter-color cake mix. Also, I thought the cookies might look kinda cute if they resembled colors in mint chocolate chip ice cream. Several sources gave me enough ideas about amount of mint and food coloring, and eventually, amount of chocolate chips.

I searched in my blog for mint and found Minty Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies and Minty Choco Chip Pudding, both from 2014.

The cooky recipe is similar to the spearymintal cookies, except for different means of mint flavor, kinds of chips, and cake mix flavor. At that time, I used a pastry cutter for mixing.

The pudding recipe uses both extract and food coloring. I had referred to page 20 of the Cuisinart Instruction Booklet (for soft-serve ice cream maker) for mint ice cream (ingredients: 30 ounces). The pudding ingredients weighed 19 1/2 ounces. The ice cream called for one teaspoon of extract. I hedged my bet and used half the amount for the pudding. Turned out to be the right decision. I had used green coloring; would use blue another time.

"Addictive Double Chocolate Mint Cookies" calls for 1 teaspoon mint extract to make a batch of 36 cookies. I decided I needed to calculate the dough weight (29 ounces), although I consider the recipe to fussy for my taste.

"McCormick® Pure Mint Extract" intrigued me with "Mint Brownies: Prepare and bake 1 package (21 ounces) brownie mix as directed, stirring 1/2 teaspoon extract into batter." One-half teaspoon! Now I needed to find out what recipe with added ingredients would weigh that would warrant a seemingly teeny amount of extract. I found an 18-ounce box fudge recipe that called for 3 T water, 1/2 cup of oil, and 2 eggs. OK, powder amount is close enough. The added ingredients would add about another 9 ounces. So, one half teaspoon of extract for 29 ounces of dough.

Gauging Appropriate Amount of Chocolate Chips

I usually use regular-size chips, commonly packaged for 12 ounces each bag. I wanted to try mini-chips. OK, so mini-chips packages weigh less, and cost about $2.50. Seems the smallness gives the taste buds pretty good bangs for buck. Anyway, the recipe for "Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Mini Morsel Cookies" calls for a 10-ounce package of mini chocolate chips. The weight for flour, sugars, butter, and eggs totaled 31 ounces. I concluded the entire pack of chips was a reasonable amount for my spearymintal cookies.

---

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

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts

I recently tried some chocolate-covered mint chocolate cookies, Fudge Mint Cookies (Back to Nature brand), recommended by a friend. Mmmm. Got me to thinking about other minty chocolate cookies. I recalled my supermarket sells Hill Country Fare Fudge Mint Cookies. They're square, minty chocolate with chocolate coating. Decided to look up more similar cookies.

I thought I recalled that Girl Scouts has a minty cooky. Yes! Thin Mints, tersely described in "Meet the Cookies".

The Google results for "girl scout cookies mint chocolate" yielded not only a pointer to the Girl Scouts Thin Mints info, but also loads of pointers to DIY recipes.

All three brands of minty chocolatey cookies, besides sharing characteristics of minty cooky coated with chocolate icing, use peppermint oil. I wondered how that differed from peppermint extract.

Contrasting Peppermint Oil and Extract

"What Is the Difference Between Peppermint Oil & Peppermint Extract?" explains:

The fundamental difference is that peppermint oil is made of pure peppermint, while peppermint extract is essentially a flavored solution—a little peppermint and a lot of something else.

Peppermint oil is the pure, concentrated oil—known as an essential oil—derived from the stems and leaves of the peppermint plant. … An extract is a mixture of an essential oil and a medium—usually alcohol—that helps carry the flavor. … Never ingest pure peppermint oil, which can be toxic in large doses.

Hmm, my bottle of "McCormick® Pure Mint Extract" lists both spearmint and peppermint oils, along with water and 89% alcohol. Speaking of peppermint and spearmint, …

Contrasting Peppermint and Spearmint

From Taste of Home's "What’s the Difference Between Peppermint and Spearmint?":

Peppermint is an incredibly pungent—almost spicy—herb. … And though peppermint is perhaps the better known of the two, it’s actually a natural hybrid of spearmint and water mint. … much more potent than its counterpart. Because peppermint is a mix of two types of mint, it contains a higher content of menthol (40% as opposed to spearmint’s 0.5%).

From Chowhound's "What Is the Difference Between Spearmint and Peppermint?":

Spearmint, containing less than 1% menthol is the far more delicate with a subtly sweet profile, and thus often found in savory dishes; much less likely to overpower other herbs and spices. … peppermint is actually a hybrid of spearmint and water mint. At 40% menthol, it is the surly, punchy and powerful member of the Metha family, and the intensity of it’s “minty” flavor borders on spiciness, earning it a fitting name.

Both Taste of Home and Chowhound sites contain expansive explanations and also links to recipes that use either kind of mint.

Other Sweetish Scent o' Mintal Thoughts

My mind meandered to mint flavored sweets. Hmm, Junior Mints, Peppermint Patties, Andes Mint candies, grasshopper pie, mint chocolate chip ice cream, …

I also thought about articles I'd written that contained mint: Minty Choco Chip Pudding and Minty Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies

My mind started percolating about another cooky recipe that would integrate yellow cake mix, mini chocolate chips, mint extract, and blue food coloring. This cooky should resemble mint chocolate chip ice cream. I needed to confidently determine the amount of extract and food coloring to use.

---

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

Pie D'oh to Plan B Cookies, Sweet-Tweaked

Initially, I started out with a rolled, refrigerated pie crust, which I had intended to use in my MayDay lemon meringue pie. The box had info about letting the dough warm up a few minutes to room temperature before unrolling it onto a pie pan. Or could microwave for a few seconds.

My brain misfired and had my fingers microwave the dough for defrost on a low setting. Unfortunately, the defrost setting is meant for FROZEN items. When I pulled out the plate of the rolled dough, I discovered the dough was tepid and soft, un-unrollable. D'oh!

I hatched Plan B—cookies. That plan worked OK. Yield was 13, with confetti sprinkles, but I thought it could use additional sweetening.

I hatched the sweet-tweak the next day after having only three cookies left. I spread some vanilla frosting, then glued additional sprinkles.

During the resolution of the pie dough, I poked around the web for ideas about pie dough cookies. I also expanded my thoughts about easy cooky making. Not addressing no-effort, ready-to-eat cookies nor the other extreme—scratch cookies. (I'm practically on permanent hiatus from physical effort and expense required for scratch cookies.)

Actual Pie Crust Cookies

I stumbled upon some sites for making cookies from pie crust. Some recipes use unroll-pie-crust dough, some suggest either unroll-dough or homemade. One calls for leftover dough. The commonality of these recipes is addition of cinnamon and extra sugar. Looks like adding butter is helpful.

• "3-Ingredient Cinnamon Sugar Cookies" is a true unroll-pie-dough recipe that uses only pie crust, sugar, and cinnamon. This recipe would not have worked in my case, as my dough was already kaput.
• "Easy Pie Crust Cookies" actually calls for a package of refrigerated Pillsbury Pie Crusts! She adds cinnamon, sugar, and melted butter, then cooky-cuts them out.
• "Pie Crust Cookies" provides guidance for using leftover pie crust. I do wonder about the small scale the baker uses—4 ounces of pie dough and rest of ingredient amounts. BTW, she calls for a lot more than three ingredients. The pix, however, are divine!
• "Cinnamon Sugar Pie Crust Cookies" suggests either store-bought or homemade pie crust, along with four additional ingredients.
• "Easy Pie Crust Cookies" also suggests either store-bought or homemade pie crust. Spartan amount of ingredients besides the crust—sugar, cinnamon, and optionally, melted butter. Her recipe uses cooky cutters.

Pretty EZ Cooky Dough Using Room-temperature Kits

Making cookies out of refrigerated rolled pie dough like I did is not economical. The pack of two was ~$3, total of just over 14 ounces. You can buy cooky mix in the cake aisle for about $2 for 17.5 ounces (example: Betty Crocker) with several varieties.

BTW, I used only one-half of my pie dough package for the 13 cookies. From looking at a website for BC cookies, the entire package yield would be 36. Sooo, if I'd used half of a BC package, the cost would have been 1/3 less than the pie dough, and the yield would have been about 50% more.

Almost EZ Cooky Dough Using Cake Mix

The standard easy recipe I use is one box of yellow cake mix, 1/3 C oil, and 2 eggs. Yellow cake is easy because the ingredients are simple. I'm not sure how factory ingredients differ among yellow, white, and butter-recipe; however, I know they require different added ingredients. For chocoholics, chocolate cake mix requires the same ingredients as yellow cake.

As for economy, each boxful weighs about 15.25 ounces. The yield, after adding oil and eggs, can range between 48 and 56. Yield is even higher, but the cost also more, if you add in choco chips and nuts.

EZ Cooky Dough Using Refrigerated Pre-mixed Cooky Dough

Refrigerated pre-mixed cooky dough comes in two forms—pellet-shapes and sausage-shaped wrapped ("chub"). Pellets come usually 24 to a pound. Open the pack, break at edges onto pan, and bake in pre-heated oven. With the slightly more laborious chubbed dough, peel away the plastic wrap, spoon the dough onto pan(s) or cut into pieces onto pan(s), and bake in pre-heated oven.

So, are you inclined to make pie dough cookies? Various other types of cookies with varying efforts?

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.)

Rainbow Nonpareil Cake Mix Cookies

Multicolor sprinkle decorations for packaged cookies, cakes, and cake mixes tend to more often be jimmies than nonpareils. These cookies vary from the ones I made when I used the Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip cake mix. Instead of using cake mix that already includes multicolor jimmies, I used basic cake mix and added rainbow nonpareils. (Wilton's product name is Rainbow Nonpareils.)

"Sprinkles, Demystified: An Explanation of All Types" explains a main difference as shape—round for nonpareils and cylindrical for jimmies.

Round Sprinkles: These can more specifically be referred to as nonpareils. These are those teeny-tiny round balls that can come in a single color or in rainbow.

Cylinder Sprinkles: Sprinkles with a cylinder shape are made by mixing up a paste ...a little slower to “bleed” color than the nonpareil type of sprinkle. ....In some parts of the United States, particularly Pennsylvania and the Northeast, this type of sprinkle (the chocolate type in particular, it seems) are referred to as “Jimmies”.

My pixstrip shows the following image areas:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients
3. Stirred cake mix and nonpareils (dry ingredients)
4. Stirred eggs and oil (wet ingredients)
5. Blended dry and wet ingredients in the larger bowl
6. Raw dough in pan
7. Baked cookies in pan
8. Cookies on a cooling rack (some flipped back to right side up)

Implements

• Cooky pan(s)
• Pastry blender
• Mixing bowls (one medium-large, one small)
• Measuring cup (optional for cracking eggs individually before pouring them into bowl)
• Tablespoon for measuring out cooky dough
• Spatula for scraping dough onto pan
• Cooky spatula for lifting and transferring baked cookies
• Cooling rack for baked cookies

Ingredients

• 1 box vanilla cake mix (I used Betty Crocker French Vanilla.)
• 4 Tablespoons Wilton Rainbow Nonpareils
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup cooking oil

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
2. Use the pastry blender to stir the cake mix powder and nonpareils together in a medium-large bowl.
3. Use the pastry blender to stir the eggs and oil together in a small bowl.
4. Pour the eggs and oil mixture into the larger bowl and combine the ingredients.
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, using the rubber spatula to ease out each lump.
7. Bake for about 9 to 11 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
8. Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

The batch made 38 cookies, ~65 calories each.

Post-Recipe Thoughts
Those nonpareils in these cookies "bled" slightly into the dough during mixing, turning the dough a light bluish gray. Interestingly, enough of the nonpareils' texture remained so that after baking, the cookies still had some crunchiness within the soft texture. Eh, at some time, I should try another cooky batch with jimmies in an egg-oil-powder dough to see if the jimmies bleed.

A few months ago, I actually did bake a jimmies version, using Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip cake mix, but I used butter instead of oil. Looking at pix I had taken of the process for "EZ Buttery Confetti Cake Mix Cookies", the jimmies did not bleed and tint the egg-oil-powder dough.

The nonpareils came free with a supermarket promotion. Normal price would run about $1.75 for the 3-ounce jar. The four tablespoons amounted to over half the jar, thus, about a dollar's worth. Cake mix tends to run slightly more than a dollar for a 15.25-ounce box. The oil cost about 30¢, and the eggs cost about 34¢.

If I calculate the cookies as having free nonpareils, each cooky comes to a little over 4¢. If I include nonpareil price, each cooky comes to about 9¢. Sure, a big price difference. OTOH, you make them fresh instead of buying them from a store or bakery. Yum—freshness and lower cost!

For a quick reference to price of eggs and oil, scroll to the bottom table at "Whataburger Pancakes, Mix, or Scratch". (I calculated costs of scratch pancake ingredients, an egg and oil being two of the items.)

EZ Buttery Confetti Cake Mix Cookies

This recipe features Betty Crocker Party Rainbow Chip cake mix. Over the years, seems that companies have used labels like "party", "birthday party", "funfetti", and "confetti" for including the colorful, sugar mini-rod decorations. Hmmm, BC's webpage shows a Rainbow Chip cake mix, but omits "Party" from the product title and URL.

I'd been curious for a long while about using butter instead of cooking oil in my cake mix cooky recipes. (Try "cookies" in the search field at the upper left.) Rather than use a single-flavor cake mix, I decided on the confetti-ish mix. Interesting contrast between using butter and oil. The process is slightly different with softening the butter first. The buttery cookies came out softer and fluffier than cookies that I used oil instead.

My pixstrip shows the following image areas:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients
3. Softened and slightly stirred butter
4. The butter and two eggs
5. Blended butter and eggs
6. Blended butter, eggs, and cake mix
7. Raw dough in pan
8. Baked cookies in pan
9. Cookies on a cooling rack (some flipped back to right side up)

Implements

• Cooky pan(s)
• Pastry blender
• Mixing bowl
• Measuring cup (optional for cracking eggs individually before pouring them into bowl)
• Tablespoon for measuring out cooky dough
• Spatula for scraping dough onto pan
• Cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
• Cooling rack for baked cookies

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup soft butter (2/3 stick)
• 1 box Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip cake mix

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
2. Soften the butter in the microwave oven as necessary.
3. Combine the butter and eggs.
4. Use the pastry blender to stir the cake mix powder into the butter and eggs mixture.
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, using the rubber spatula to ease out each lump.
7. Bake for about 9 to 10 minutes until the edges are lightly browned.
8. Use the cooky spatula for lifting and transferring the done cookies onto cooling rack.

The batch made 39 cookies, ~57 calories each. I did spot some other cake mix recipes using the Betty Crocker Party Rainbow Chip cake mix, but several added frosting atop the cookies. Adding the frosting seems to be gilding the lily, adding more calories and sweetness, in addition to using more time and effort. Assuming a hypothetical distribution of an entire 16-oz can of Betty Crocker Rich and Creamy Vanilla frosting, each cooky would have an additional ~47 calories—13 servings x 140 calories/serving ÷ 39 cookies = 46.7 calories/cooky.

Post-Recipe Thoughts
Another time, I'll try making cookies that emulate my "Krusteaz Choco Caramel Squares" from my previous article. However, I'll try making individual round cookies instead of a single slab that I cut up later. Haven't decided whether to use tablespoon/spatula method or use my cooky shooter to dispense the dough.

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.

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]

PC Cookies

Personal Computer? Politically Correct? Printed Circuit? Peanut Cluster? Nah! I wanted to think of a way to recall main ingredients for this cooky recipe. Sooo, using a recognizable pair of letters would help—pecan coconut.

Sure, "p" could also mean peanut, peach, praline, and "c" could also mean carrot, caramel, crunch.

In Googling "pc", the most popular hits that come up pertain to personal computers. As I progressed in entering characters of my article title, I saw that Google started autofilling a suggestion for "pc cookies", the topic being cookies on personal computers.

As in many of my other cooky recipes, I used boxed cake mix for convenience. My hyperlinked list at the bottom of the article has only one scratch recipe. I'm a big believer in few ingredients and easy preparation. I came up with this recipe came from wanting to bake cookies without chocolate that was likely to melt in summer weather—no chips, chunks, or ganache.

These cookies surprised me for being crunchy rather than soft and chewy. I think my recollection for soft and chewy is from cake mix cookies I had baked, um, a long time ago.

In the distant past, the standard cake mix cookies called for adding 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of oil, and 2 tablespoons of water to the powder. The cookies came out of the oven initially soft until cooled. They were crunchy like store-bought cookies for maybe an hour or so, then became soft and chewy. I think instructions said to store in an airtight container after they cooled to prevent them from becoming soft and chewy.

The standard recipe now calls for 2 eggs and 1/3 cup of oil. A few years ago, I did try the older recipe with the newer cake mix. The cookies tasted fine, but they were quite crunchy and never softened.

It seems that big-name cake mix companies, within months of each other, changed their recipe and touted the addition of pudding. To my recollection that move came on the heels of a Pillsbury Bakeoff winner having put pudding into a cake mix cake. I haven't been able to find a link to the history of addition of pudding to cake mix powder. Maybe some other baker who reads this article can enlighten.

Anyway, onward to the recipe! 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. white cake mix (I used Duncan HInes French Vanilla.)
• 2 C flaked coconut (I broke up the bigger, stuck clumps.)
• 1/2 C chopped pecans (I used a 2 1/4 oz. pack of pieces, which I chopped into smaller pieces.)

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 and nuts 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. 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. Slightly press the lumps with the bottom of the measuring cup for flatter cookies.
8. Bake for about 9 to 10 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 52 cookies, calculated to about 82 calories each. YMMV.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

• 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]