Cake Mix Cookies - one of my new favorite things.

Who doesn't love a simple homemade dessert? I know they are my go-to recipes when I want something sweet. I have recently discovered (thanks to Pinterest) the wonderfulness of what a cake mix can do. Personally, I don't love cake. Don't get me wrong, I do like it and if it's offered to me the answer is always yes, but it's just not my favorite dessert. I love cake flavors, but I think it's just the texture. Box cake mixes always make really fluffy, airy cakes. If I'm going to eat cake, I want it to be a good, moist, dense cake. I've never made a cake from scratch, though... maybe that will be my next adventure...

Ok, done ranting about cake.

Back to cake mixes. They have SO many uses I never would have thought of if it had not been for Pinterest. I've made cake batter puppy chow (and it's deeee-licious! I'm making some soon to take on vacation... I'll try to post about that later), cake batter "fudge", cake bars, but my favorite is cake mix cookies.

I love cookies and can honestly say that there aren't many things better than a warm cookie right out of the oven with a glass of milk (cookie dough might be one thing better than a warm cookie). Cake mix cookies are great for those times when you really want fresh baked cookies, but don't have (or want to get out) all of the ingredients to make them from scratch. Here's the recipe:

1 box cake mix

1/4 c water

1/4 c vegetable oil

1 T applesauce (or 1 egg, I prefer applesauce)

Preheat oven to 350. 

Mix all ingredients together. 

Drop spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. 

(I have one of those nifty little cookie dough scoops that I use) 

Bake for 15 minutes. 

Cool on wire racks. 

Eat.

It's so simple! The thing I love most about these cookies is that the options are endless! I've made them with funfetti cake, lemon cake, red velvet cake (with homemade cream cheese icing... mmm), and my most recent ones were made with yellow cake and I added mini chocolate chips and a dash of coconut flakes. Yumm-o! 

AND-- the greatest thing about this mix: no eggs (if you choose)! So you can eat as much dough as you want and not feel one bit guilty about it! Does any one else out there eat so much cookie dough that you almost (and I did say almost) don't want any cookies after they're baked? I do. All the time. Anyway, the original recipe I found for these cookies called for an egg, but I was out of eggs and really wanted to make cookies that night. So I looked up egg substitutes and found out that I could use applesauce. I did use egg once, but using egg made the cookies fluffier--and going back to my rant about cake, the more dense, the better. So I decided that applesauce was the better option for me (and my love of eating cookie dough). But you can try both ways and decide which way you prefer. 

Final thoughts: there are infinite combinations that you could do with these cookies. Use your imagination, experiment, come up with something new and delicious and share your recipe with me! I hope you all try these delicious little desserts and love them as much as I do!