Cake Mix Cookies

Where have these been all my life???  I am by no means a baker.  The exact science that goes into most baking is just not my strong point.  I would much rather add what I want and taste as I go.  My local grocery store, The Florence Food Center has this wonderful section of damaged or foods past the sell by date.  Often what ends up on this cart is ripped bags of pasta and cake mixes.  I can not resist picking up cakes mixed even though my sweet tooth does not show itself often...99 cents is my kryponite. 

The Holiday mood has a grip on me and I pulled out a box of Duncan Hines Caramel Cake Mix.  My dillema was that I only had a few eggs and no frosting (I'm a Bacheolorette Don't Judge Me) I was asking my personal assistant aka Google for suggestions and Cake Mix Cookies came up.  Whoever came up with this is a GENIUS!! Only 3 ingredients and less than 10 min cook time.

1 box cake mix of your choice
1/3 Cup oil
2 eggs

heat oven to 350 and plop on cookie sheet and bake aprox 9 mins.

The best part about these is that you can add flavors and bits of stuff... some examples are (just flavor combos in my mind and not oven tested yet)

Lemon cake w/ Blueberries
White Cake with Mint extract and chocolate chips (or M&Ms)
Butter pecan cake w/ pecan crumbles and a drizzle of maple
Orange Cake with coconut shavings
Chocolate Cake with anything...and so on

I chose to start some with crumbles of a dark chocolate bar and some with....wait for it...BACON!! I only made a few to test out cooking time and flavor profile before I ruin them.  Did I mention I don't have a cookie sheet.  That may be a problem too but a casserole dish SHOULD work right?  Also since there is not as much liquid as a regular cake mix it with a fork.  It is way too thick for everything else.

Round One: Left the cookies in 10 mins.  Still doughy so I put them back in the over. BUT I taste tested one with bacon in it and it was DELISH! It could be my lack of baking sheet.  I may use my pampered chef baking stone for round two. Popped them back in for about 10 more mins they look better.

Round Two: Baking on the stone.  I've given up on baking times.  I'm just leaving them in till they look right.  9-15 mins *shrugs*

Final Round..I'm just alternating the baking dish and stone till they are done, they both are working out okay. 

The finished product was around 2 dozen moist tasty cookies.  I left a few in a bit longer for a bit of a crunch.  I am very pleased with the outcome.  They are a easy alternative to traditional cookies.  Even though I don't have any snot monsters ( I kid I kid) I could see these being a fun weekend project..a few different cake mixes and a selection of mixers let the kids mix and match the cookies and bake away.