Super Easy, Super Fast, Super Cheap Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies

This is a "go to" recipe for me.  I was given then recipe by some anonymous woman who stopped by our garage sale a few years back.  I wish I had gotten her name so I could give her credit for this one...They are super easy, super quick, super cheap, & make a lot of cookies...

I make several varieties of this cookie, & I'm sure over time I will end up posting all of the varieties in different posts (once I make the batches to take photos). This post will focus on the chocolate cookie variety.  They only require 3 ingredients, & one of the main ingredients is cake mix.  Any standard-sized boxed chocolate cake mix will work.  I tend to stock up on Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker cake mixes when they go on sale for $1 (because then they are nearly free with coupons...).  You can then mix-in about anything you want to use. Tonight I made my favorite variety, chocolate-chocolate chip with Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips.  These cookies are also really good with chopped nuts, raspberry chocolate chips, or any other mix-in you have on hand.

The best thing about this particular cookie variety, is that they make THE BEST homemade ice cream sandwiches.  For our dessert tonight we made ice cream sandwiches using Graeter's Coconut Chip Ice Cream. Yumm...

Best. Ice cream. Sandwich. Ever.

Easy chocolate-chocolate chip cake mix cookies

Yields 24-36 cookies, Prep/Cooking time 10-12 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 box of chocolate cake mix (tonight I used Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge, usually I use Duncan Hines Devil's Food cake mix)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips [optional]
• any other mix-ins you want to use [optional]

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Right before you bake the cookies, sttir all ingredients in large mixing bowl until well-blended. It helps to mix eggs & oil together first.  You do not want to mix the batter too far in advance, the cookies will be really flat when they cook.  

Beat eggs & oil

All ingredients mixed...

3.  Spoon onto 2 "un-greased" cookie sheets. I prefer to use a melon baller so the cookies are fairly uniform in size, but you can use the original "spoon drop" method too.

Cookies spooned out & ready to bake.

4.  Cook for 8-10 minutes.  Cookies will start to get a dull/cracked appearance on top when they are almost done.  You want these to stay soft & chewy. Cookies may flatten out when you take them out of the oven, that's perfectly fine.  

An example cookie.  Normally my cookies are round :-/...
This time, in my hurried state, they were all lopsided. 

5.  Let cookies cool on the pan for 5-10 minutes prior to moving to cooling racks, otherwise they may fall through the racks. These are REALLY soft when you first take them out of the oven.

Enjoy!