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.

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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

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"

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?

Pt 1 Choco Oatmeal Cookies Using Applesauce Not Butter or Oil

The web has loads of recipes for making oatmeal cookies. My batch was meant to be about as low-calorie as I could make, but chocolate chips would be mandatory! (About a month ago, I made a split batch of oatmeal cookies—one portion being chipped and the other portion unchipped. Chipped were tastier.)

This article is more of a guide for the cooky recipe, intended for those who have cooky preparation experience. You should know about recipe utensils and equipment, ingredients, recipes steps, and reading between lines. For more elementary cooky preparation info, visit "Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies",

Two Main Recipe Guides

"Oatmeal Cookies (with Oil instead of Butter)" lists the most reasonable number of ingredients. The methodology looked sensible to follow. I subbed applesauce for oil, bumped up the baking soda, and omitted the cinnamon. Note: My brown sugar was bricky, so I revived it by microwaving it in a bowl beside a bowlful of water for a couple of 2-minute sessions.

"How to Substitute Applesauce for Butter in Oatmeal Cookies" provides advice for the applesauce substitution. The site includes sections titled "The Method" (mixing sequence), "Find the Best Ratio" (1:1), "Cooking Time and Results" (descriptive differences), and "Other Considerations" (oatmeal cookies being suitable for applesaucing).

Ingredients (preheating oven 350 a good idea at this time)

1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups oats (I used quick-cooking type.)
8 ounces (1 1/2 C) chocolate chips
Spray oil, needed because the dough has no butter or oil

Combining Ingredients (tilt-head mixer advised)

1. Whisk together in a smallish bowl: flour, baking soda, and salt
2. Mix together in a larger bowl or tilt-head mixer bowl: eggs, vanilla, brown sugar
3. Stir flour mixture into the wet ingredients.
4. Stir in the oatmeal.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Dispensing Dough

Before dispensing, I used spray oil on each pan, except for one pan with 6 dollops that I forgot to spray. Oops! No surprise that those didn't easily lift off the pan after baking.

At first, I stuffed dough into a cooky press that I modified a disc for. However, the sticky dough was uncooperative, sticky to the cavity more easily than dropping onto the pan. Lost cause. I dumped the dough back into the mixing bowl. I settled on using a 1 1/2 T cooky scoop and, clumsily, rubber spatula, and fingers.

I then tried pressing dollops flatter—time consuming and stickiness ickiness. For a future batch, I'll try wetting fingers between dollop droppings (grin). Might also try my adjustable measuring spoon.

 

Baking and Results

I baked each panful 10 minutes. The yield was 72 (and tasty). The cookies didn't rise or expand by much. At least they were about 2" diameter. I wasn't sure if I should have put in more baking soda. They were a little crunchy outside and a little soft inside. In a few hours till end of cookies (5 days, refrigerated after cooling), they were still somewhat soft and chewy, similar to cereal bars.

Calories and Sodium

Initially, I used stats in packages, then suspected lots of potentially tolerance errors. Many of the stats referred to single-serving sizes, such as a portion of a spoonful or cup. I Googled for calorie stats for cupful of flour, brown sugar, and chocolate chips. Sure enough, my second set of numbers better reflected realistic amounts of ingredients used.

The recipe focuses on applesauce instead of butter/oil and includes chocolate chips. The sodium is the same for three options.

Comparison for using butter/oil instead of applesauce, add 1600 C, subtract 120 C.
3920 + 1600 - 120 = 5400
5400 / 72 cookies = 75 C each

Comparison for skipping chocolate chips, using applesauce instead of butter/oil, subtract 1209.

(Eight ounces of chips amounted to 12 cookies. Hypothetical yield = 60 cookies.)
3920 - 1209 = 2711
2711 / 60 cookies = 45 C each

Comparison for skipping chocolate chips, using butter/oil instead of applesauce, subtract 1209 and 120, add 1600.
3920 - 1209 - 120 + 1600 = 4191
4191/ 60 cookies = 70 C each

"Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies", used similar ingredients as the last recipe, but differing amounts. The yield was 56 cookies, calculated to about 63 calories each. Those cookies actually came out prettier. Maybe my next oatmeal cooky session will be the use-oil recipe, with chocolate chips.

Hmmm, I don't recall dough stickiness being as difficult as the applesauce hack. Yeah, more calories/cooky, but maybe more easy to dispense. I'll try the cooky scooper and adjustable measuring spoon, hoping the dollops are reasonable handling.

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"Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies"

"Pt 1 Choco Oatmeal Cookies Using Applesauce Not Butter or Oil"
recipe-centric info

"Pt 2 Choco Oatmeal Cookies Using Applesauce Not Butter or Oil"
closer looks, additional resources

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.)

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.

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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

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.

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]

Pt 2 Choco Oatmeal Cookies Using Applesauce Not Butter or Oil

My batch of chocolate oatmeal cookies using unsweetened applesauce instead of butter or oil was tasty, but turned out to be a time-consuming adventure. The less-than-pleasant experiences were dough stickiness and difficulty of trying to use a cooky press. (For recipe-centric info, read  "Pt 1 Choco Oatmeal Cookies Using Applesauce Not Butter or Oil".)

My recipe at "Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies", from July 2012 is indeed easy. This time, I wanted to try adding chocolate chips and also reduce fat calories by replacing oil with unsweetened applesauce. "How to Substitute Applesauce for Butter in Oatmeal Cookies" includes reasonable suggestions for the ingredients and process. The list of subs looked good.

Cookies that work well with an applesauce-for-butter substitution include chocolate chip, oatmeal and peanut butter, as long as you don't mind the cake-like texture. Applesauce would not work well in cookies that depend on butter for both flavor and crispiness, such as butter cookies or shortbread.

As in my previous recipe, I needed to soften a brick of brown sugar (this time, dark). I used the seventh bulleted suggestion from "10 Ways To Soften Hard Brown Sugar".

Need it soft now? Put it in a container and set in the microwave with a small bowl full of water beside it. Microwave for about 1 minute–check. If it’s still hard, try for another 30 seconds. You can keep doing this until it’s soft, but watch that you don’t melt it.

This time, I used a couple of two-minute heating times. After packing a cup of the sugar, I returned the remainder to its bag and fridge. (I'm guessing that by the next time I need brown sugar, I'll need to again resoften it.)

So, how'd my cookies turn out? I'd say B+. Reasonably tasty, chewiness similar to cereal bars.

Why not an A? One reason the dough was difficult to dispense—sticky, sticky sticky! The other reason for not an A was that my easiest oatmeal-cooky results looked nicer. Although the previous batch didn't have chocolate chips, I had anticipated this batch would look just as nice. Dang, wasn't so!

Dough Stickiness

Most of the sites that address dough stickiness talk about the amount of fat in the recipe, too little flour, and needing to cool the dough. Seems several pieces of advice pertain to roll-out dough. (Mine were drop kind of cookies.) As my recipe used applesauce instead of butter or oil, reasonable advice seems to be to lightly wet dough or try other means of dispensing dough.

"Cookie Dough Too Sticky – How To Fix It" recommends wetting hands.

You can handle the sticky dough with wet hands more easily. Keep in mind that you will need to wet your hands repeatedly until you are finished working with the dough to prevent it from sticking to your hands. ... However, don’t do this for too long, as this water will transfer to the dough and make it wetter and therefore stickier.

"Help! My Cookie Dough is Too Sticky & Wet: (exactly) How to Fix It" has some advice that might be helpful another time.

If you’re working with a sticky cookie dough and struggling to get it in the oven, don’t try and get it on the tray with your hands. ... Instead, use a spoon or ice cream scoop or cookie scoop (recommended) to get the dough onto the baking tray. ... This is great for doughs that are okay to be a bit more sticky and don’t need to be rolled out or cut-out.

Initially, I tried my cooky press. I gave that up within three dollops, as the dough stuck in the chamber all three times, which I needed to coax out with a spoon. I switched to using my 1 1/2 T cooky scoop. That worked, but slowly, as dough kept sticking to the scoop's exterior. The spring squeezer was a bit clunky to eject the dollops fast.

I've used the spatula-and-tablespoon method in the past for other cookies. It is a slow method because the dollops, besides, being one a time, requires two-hand scoop/unscoop.

The next batch, I'll try my adjustable measuring spoon. In any case, I'll keep a bowl of water and towel nearby in attempts to prevent dough superstickiness.

Oatmeal for Thought—Quick Oats, Non-quick Oats, ...

Google results for "can i substitute quick oats for old fashioned" show loads of info for contrasting oats and also includes q/a, whether you're curious, or readying to bake with oats.

"Oatmeal Cookies" advocates quick oats—"tend to make the cookie softer. ,,, it’s what I always have in my house. Instant oatmeal also cooks faster (even in cookie form)".

"What kind of oats do you use for baking?" describes rolled, quick, ground, and steel-cut oats. The author advises about making oat flour, with caution.

If using too much oat flour, baked goods may turn out dense, heavy and flat because the lack of gluten prevents the flour from trapping gases that give rise to the dough or batter.

"One-Bowl, No-Mixer, No-Chill Oatmeal Cookies" sounds promising for ease. The list of ingredients and instructions look handy for novice bakers. She advises against using quick oats, that they "have a much different texture than rolled oats and would act more like a flour in these cookies. Your homemade oatmeal cookies would wind up being too dry."

Good luck with feeling your oats!

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"Simplest Scratch Oatmeal Cookies"

"Pt 1 Choco Oatmeal Cookies Using Applesauce Not Butter or Oil"
recipe-centric info

"Pt 2 Choco Oatmeal Cookies Using Applesauce Not Butter or Oil"
closer looks, additional resources

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.

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?

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]

Cookie Mix Recipe: Fat Deviating

I've been on a roll lately with deviating from sweets recipes—even easy and convenient ones. This time, I deviated from a Krusteaz Triple Chocolate Chunk cookie mix. (Krusteaz has nothing to do with the Simpsons show clown, Krusty.)

The box calls for only 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter and one egg besides the packaged mix. Simple. But I didn't want to use only all butter for the fat.

Sooo, I used half the butter called for. The other half, I replaced with one tablespoon of sesame oil and enough cooking oil to fill 1/2 cup.

Yes, I realized AFTER I baked the cookies that I put in too much cooking oil. I should have added three tablespoons of cooking oil instead of seven, resulting in 400 extra calories (200 calories x 2 oz. oil).

The results weren't disastrous. The cookies came out crispy, and just a mite oilier than if I'd replaced the correct amounts of fat. The cookie webpage claimed the cookies to be "chewy". They had 400 additional calories spread over 46 cookies, which amounted to less than 10 extra calories per cooky.

According to the Krusteaz box's nutritional table, the dry ingredients total 2160 calories (120 calories x 18 servings of two 2"-diameter cookies). A prepared mix of dry and wet ingredients total 3060 (170 per serving). Anyway, if I had prepared my 46 cookies with the equivalent fat substitutions, each cooky would have been 66 1/2 calories (3060/46). Instead, each cooky came to about 75 calories (3460/46).

The Krusteaz box displayed a table that listed yields as follows:

• 56 2" cookies (2 t dough)
• 24 2-1/2" cookies (1 rounded T dough)
• 2 3" cookies (2 rounded T dough).

The nutritional table estimated a yield of 36 2" cookies. As my yield was 46, I'm guessing my tablespoonfuls were somewhere between level and slightly concave.

Although I increased the number of ingredients from the box's recommendation, it was by only two. The sesame oil, a favorite additive of mine, gave the cookies a nutty flavor. The cooking oil reduced the amount of saturated fat because of butter. Yes, overall fat was higher. Next time, I'll try to remember to substitute the right amounts. :-)

My pixstrip panels show the following images:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients
3. Pan with raw dough/baked cookies
4. Plate of cookies (yum)

To search for other sweets recipes (most of them EZ), use the search feature at the upper left of the webpage, or click keywords in the index at the upper right.

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.)

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.

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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