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.)

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.