Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky 2, Improved Dough Dispensing

Ingredients, equipment, and mixing, dispensing, and baking info for this cheery cherry almond cooky are in the the video. This recipe go-around is my second attempt at making a version of HEB's Mon Cheri Cookie. The cookies I made in August came out pretty well, but dough dispensing had been challenging. August's Closer Looks video shows the dough stickiness hampering my dispensing.

This batch of dough was less-sticky and dispensed neater and faster. Two variables could have made the difference(s) in dolloping ease.

• Trying a cake mix brand/flavor other than Betty Crocker™ Super Moist™ Delights Cherry Chip Cake Mix (15.25 oz). I used my supermarket-brand yellow cake mix (16 .5 oz).
• Using more effort in removing maraschino cherry fluid—yield of 4.59 ounces cherries then and 2.65 ounces this time.

To compensate for less cherry flavor, I added one envelope of Cherry Kool-Aid.

Dough Dispensing Emphasis

The four dough dispensing methods I used this time are as follows:

• Cooky press with DIY funnel (cut-off top of shampoo bottle) and spoon
• Cooky scoop (1 1/3 T)
• Spoon and rubber spatula
• Tablespoon measuring spoon and rubber spatula

The cooky press method saves on travel effort between bowl and pan. Downside is that the tube doesn't hold enough dough to dispense all in one session. The other three methods are one-dollop-at-a-time, rather tedious for the repetitive bowl/pan back and forth.

Calories and Sodium

The yield was 50 cookies, varying somewhat for size. I did have some awkwardness in using the four dispensing methods.

Post-recipe Thoughts

The cookies came out tasty with cherryish flavor. They were soft, almost cake-like.

 Softer vs. Crisper Cookies

For next time, I'll aim more for crunchier—baking at lower temperature (325) and longer, as recommended in "What Makes Cookies Chewy or Crispy? — from Cooking for Geeks" and "How to Harden Soft Cookies".

 Color

The Cherry Kool-Aid might have made the color a bit deeper than I'd intended. And I missed seeing cherry bits that were more evident in the August cookies. Possibly I overpulsed the cherries in the blender. Next time, I might try dehydrated ones and halve the amount of Kool-Aid.

 Cherryness

Maybe the main reason for improved dispensing could be less moisture—getting rid of more cherry fluid than August's batch. This time, after pulsing the cherries, I drained AND blotted the remains. The yield was 2.65 ounces instead of 4.59 ounces. Pretty expensive item, considering they were 10-ounce jars of cherries! Thinking of trying chopped dehydrated cherries, but chopping and adding only half the pack.

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Pt 1 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Inspired by HEB's Mon Cheri Cookie

Pt 2 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Closer Looks

Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky 2, Improved Dough Dispensing

View more cooky recipes.

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Pt 2 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Closer Looks

This article is an accompaniment to Pt 1 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Inspired by HEB's Mon Cheri Cookie. During the project, some items piqued me.

What kind of "cherry flavored pieces" would be in the cake mix? Cherry flavor without cherries? The list of ingredients didn't assure me of treasure. Wanting to increase cherry visibility, I added drained, pitless, stemless maraschino cherries that I chop-pulsed in my blender.

The cake mix cooky dough was unexpectedly sticky and difficult to handle. And the baked ones from the first batch didn't lift off the pan as easily as most other cake mix cookies in the past. Furthermore, they came out soft, rather than crunchy like the Mon Cheri cookies. But what yummy taste and sweetness!

View the video for following details:

• Seeing the "cherry flavor pieces" that are in Betty Crocker Super Moist Cherry Chip Cake Mix, which I used for making the cake mix cookies
• Using a blender to chop maraschino cherries, then draining and weighing them before they go in the cooky dough.
• Using four ways to dispense the cooky dough. Two of the ways include using a cooky press to push out such add-in-ingredients dough. (View guidance on DIY nozzle and disk modification.)

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Pt 1 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Inspired by HEB's Mon Cheri Cookie

Pt 2 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Closer Looks

Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky 2, Improved Dough Dispensing

View more cooky recipes.

Pt 1 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Inspired by HEB's Mon Cheri Cookie

HEB's Mon Cheri Cookie--it's a big hit in the household! The product inspired me to make a cherry almond cooky, which includes Betty Crocker's Cherry Chip Cake Mix, chopped maraschino cherries, and slivered almonds.

My video walks the viewer through the cooky recipe, from ingredients, equipment, mixing, dispensing, and baking. The dispensing is notable for showing four ways, two using a cooky press, one using a cooky scoop, and one using a spatula and measuring spoon.

Cherry Flavored Pieces

An text item on the cake mix caught my eye "with cherry flavored pieces". Thus, I wondered what they could be. I sifted the cake mix. The remains (a smidge more than 1/3 ounce) resembled pink nonpareils and maybe soy bits. The list of ingredients didn't mention soy. Thus, I Wondered if BC was fudging terminology, such as "corn cereal". Something seemed clearly non water-soluble.

Very Sticky Dough

Weirdly, the dough behaved differently than numerous past cake mix cooky doughs. It came out very sticky and difficult to handle. I needed help using fingers, butter knife edge, and spoon to drop dollops. I noticed the dough weirdness even before adding the cherries and almonds.

Baked Cookies Hugging Pan

Another oddity about the dough was its tendency to stick to the pan for the first batch. Past cake mix cooky dough, besides dispensing easily, seemed to have enough fat for the baked cookies to easily lift off the pan. For the second batch, I spray-oiled the pan before dolloping. Easier cookies liftoff!

Cooky Results and Looking to Make 2.0 Version

The home cookies were softer, chewier, sweeter, and stickier to the touch. Yield was 44. (Mon Cheri cookies come 18 to the box.)

Future attempts will include adding one two two tablespoons of flour after mixing in the cake mix powder. I might or might not adjust the fat. Maybe add more fat to see if the dough is easier to dispense, and the cookies easier to lift off the pan. Plan B is to spray oil the pan anyway. Plan C is to try making cherry almond cookies using a different cake mix.

To address the sticky-to-touch baked cookies, lowering the temperature to 325 and adding more baking time should tend to make them dryer and crunchier. Hoping for perfection the next time.

Calories and Sodium

The calories and sodium amounts are similar to those numerous cake mix cookies I've made. Because of the difficulty in dispensing, individual cooky sizes and stats might vary.

Closer Looks

Visit "Pt 2 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Closer Looks" (article, video) for following details:

• Seeing the "cherry flavor pieces" that are in Betty Crocker Super Moist Cherry Chip Cake Mix, which I used for making the cake mix cookies
• Using a blender to chop maraschino cherries, then draining and weighing them before they go in the cooky dough
• Using four ways to dispense the cooky dough. Two of the ways include using a cooky press to push out such add-in-ingredients dough.

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Pt 1 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Inspired by HEB's Mon Cheri Cookie

Pt 2 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Closer Looks

Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky 2, Improved Dough Dispensing

View more cooky recipes.

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.

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"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.

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.