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Cake Mix Cookies
August 2, 2020
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Incredibly soft, these Cake Mix Cookies are easy to make and even easier to eat! Only 4 ingredients needed to whip up a batch with endless flavor combinations. The sky is truly the limit when it comes to these cookies! Delicious with crockpot hot chocolate or egg nog for the holidays!
Cake Mix Cookies | Easiest Cookie Recipe EVER
One of the fastest and easiest ways to make homemade cookies is by making them with cake mix. Hello, quick and easy dessert! If you find cake mix flavors you love, you can turn them into cake mix cookies with this simple, basic method.
A lot of people prefer cookies made with cake mix versus completely homemade because they always turn out and there is no guessing whether or not these will work. While my recipe calls for oil, melted butter can definitely be used interchangeably.
Main Ingredients Needed
Believe it or not, these Cake Mix Cookies only require 4 ingredients! And it’s an easy enough recipe to make with your kids, (don’t worry cake mix is VERY forgiving). Here’s what you need:
- Cake Mix – this contains all of the dry ingredients needed to make these cookies. More about cake mix in the next section!
- Eggs – used for structure! Without eggs, the cookies would spread like crazy!
- Oil – this is mainly for moisture, any light-colored oil will work here (canola oil, vegetable oil, etc.) Oil is also our secret weapon for soft cookies. Melted butter also works in a pinch.
- Vanilla Extract – this is for a little extra flavor that helps these cookies taste homemade. It’s optional, but I think makes a difference.
These are the basic ingredients to make these cookies but I’ve also come up with different flavor combinations you can find below.
How to Make Cake Mix Cookies in 3 Easy Steps
There is no need for the creaming method for these Cake Mix Cookies! Simply dump all the ingredients into a bowl and mix away. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl and mix out all of the lumps, though a few small lumps are totally fine! For full recipe details check out the recipe card down below!
Step 1: Preheat Your Oven
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line two light colored baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Step 2: Make Your Cookie Dough (with a Cake Mix!)
In a large bowl, stir cake mix together with oil, eggs and vanilla extract. This is where you can mix in your add-ins too. (See notes below about that.)
With a cookie scoop, scoop, and drop cookies onto the prepared baking sheet.
Step 3: Bake Your Cookies
Bake your cookies until they have puffed up and edges are barely brown. You aren’t going for browned cookies, they should look matte and a little crackly on top.
Leave on the baking pan for a few minutes then transfer to cooling racks.
Store leftovers in a Ziploc bag with a piece of bread in it (to keep them soft) for up to 3 days.
Customizing Your Cookies
One of the funnest parts about making Cake Mix Cookies is customizing them! You can do this by changing the cake mix flavor and/or adding mix-ins!
Use Different Flavors of Cake Mix
Any flavor of cake mix will do to make these cake mix cookies! I stuck to the Betty Crocker 15.25 oz boxes and as you can see above, I bought three different flavors. A basic plain white cake mix, rainbow chip, and chocolate! As long as you’re using a 15 oz box of cake mix, this recipe will work perfectly regardless of flavor.
- Lemon
- Red Velvet
- Carrot Cake
- Spice Cake
- Strawberry
- Funfetti
- German Chocolate
- Butter Pecan
- Yellow Cake
- Cherry Chip
- Dark Chocolate
Mix-In’s
- chocolate chips (milk, semi-sweet, or dark)
- white chocolate chips
- peanut butter chips
- butterscotch chips
- chopped candy bars (butterfingers, twix, snickers, reese’s cups)
- reese’s pieces
- m&m’s
- sprinkles (use different colors to fit an occasion. Red, white, and blue for Independence Day or green, and red for Christmas)
- nuts (almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, etc.)
- coconut shreds
- citrus zest (orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit)
- dried fruit (strawberry, raspberries, blueberries, apricot)
- mini marshmallows
- chopped graham crackers
- chopped candy canes
Flavor Combinations for Cake Mix Cookies
Need a little more guidance for these extremely versatile cookies? I got you covered! Try out these cake mix cookies:
- S’mores – add a mixture of chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and chopped graham crackers to white cake mix for summer-worthy S’mores cookies!
- Chocolate Peanut Butter – use chocolate cake mix with peanut butter chips for this classic flavor combo. Reese’s Pieces is also a good peanut butter choice.
- Almond Joy – combine toasted chopped almonds, coconut shreds, and chocolate chips with either chocolate or white cake mix.
- Lemon – for a lemon overload use a lemon cake mix and add in lemon zest!
- Carrot Cake – use carrot cake mix and add white chocolate chips. Or consider making cookie sandwiches with cream cheese frosting in between.
- Berry Cookies – mix dried fruit, any sort of chocolate chips, and cake mix together. Think of a chocolate cookie with dried strawberries and white chocolate chips in it, so pretty!
More Cookies to Try!
If you loved this recipe, you’re going to love all of my other cookie recipes! Here are a couple of ones to try first:
- Soft Baked Peanut Butter Cookies
- Chocolate Fudge Cookies
- Carrot Cake Cookies
- Actually Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
- No Bake Cookies
Experiment away friends and make the best cake mix cookies ever!
The printable recipe card is below, enjoy 🙂
Cake Mix Cookies
Incredibly soft, these Cake Mix Cookies are easy to make and even easier to eat! The flavor combinations are just about endless.
Ingredients
- 15.25 ounce Betty Crocker™ cake mix 1 box, in any flavor
- 1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 large eggs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a large bowl, stir cake mix together with oil, vanilla and eggs.
- Scoop dough into 24 even balls and place onto prepared baking sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool 4 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Enjoy warm or at room temperature.
- *Slightly adapted from BettyCrocker.com
Nutrition
Calories: 143kcal | Carbohydrates: 19g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 14mg | Sodium: 157mg | Potassium: 65mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 12g | Vitamin A: 31IU | Calcium: 35mg | Iron: 1mg
I have been making similar cookies for years from my grandma’s recipe. We usually roll ours into balls and then into sugar. So like yellow cake mix roll in a cinnamon/sugar mix so they’re like Snickerdoodles. Chocolate cake mix would be rolled in powdered sugar, etc. I don’t know why but I’ve never thought to add mix-ins to the batter before. I will definitely have to try that to the next batch I make. What I love about this recipe though is that it’s so easy and only makes a small batch. My grandma said she came up with her recipe because my dad or my 3 uncles would always tell her they needed cookies for school the next day at 10 pm the night before. She needed something quick and not complicated to make. Thanks for sharing your version. I love all your recipes.
My husband used to make these cake mix cookies to take to a weekly meeting. He tried every cake mix there was. They are good but I found that if they were not eaten within a few days they were a bit grainy. Usually they didn’t last that long thank goodness
Thank you. Yours is the only site that made any sense.
Can you freeze these cookies ?
Yes! In an airtight container for up to 3 months!
I only have 10 oz cake mix boxes can I add extra flour to stretch it to make more cookies
I like cake mix cookies.
Can you use Duncan Hines instead of Betty Crocker without having to adjust amounts?
Consider me influenced! I saw this recipe on your Instagram account and it was a no brainer to try with my kids. We made cherry chip with Christmas coloured sprinkles. Yum! I shouldn’t be surprised… in the many years I’ve been following your blog, you’ve never led me astray! Thanks for another good one!
Can I use melted butter instead of the oil?
yes!
Can I use oil oil or applesauce instead of vegetable oil?
As long as its a lightly colored and flavored oil, it’ll work just fine. I’ve never tried it with applesauce, but you are welcome to try. The texture is what would most likely suffer.
Can I use applesauce instead of oil
Yes you can, but not adding fat will give a different texture to the cookie that some people might not like.
These cookies are delightful, and incredibly easy. There are almost endless flavor combinations. I’ve made these many times. 😋
I love the idea of mix-ins. Can you suggest an amount to add. I would probably add a couple of things like chips and nuts. Thanks and Happy New Year.
Added chocolate kiss in the center and used chocolate cake mix . Death by chocolate for sure. They were delicious. Thank you for sharing your recipe.
This recipe was not good. The bake time was completely off and the cookies were under cooked and we had to throw away 3/4 of the batch, it was very dissapointing.
They should have been baked after 8-10 minutes. Did you scoop them into bigger cookies? Also, some ovens run hot or cold. You can definitely bake these longer if you noticed they weren’t baked entirely through.