Laziest. Cookies. Ever.

I've owed this to C and N for a very long time now.

Once, over the winter season, I had a really productive burst one day and decided that I NEEDED to make cookies and fudge.
Oh. My. God.
It was a good day.
Lot and lots of sugar.

Anyways.
One thing that I had been focusing on doing for a while (and still keep an eye out for, though I don't actively search it out as often) is finding and creating good food that is easy to make for the -ahem- culinarily disinclined.
You know who you are.
And through that noble search I came upon Lazy Cookies.

Little known fact: I LOVE white birthday cake.
If it has the little confetti specks in it, EVEN BETTER.
But since I don't really like cake from a box, I really don't make it that often unless I have an experiment or cupcakes to make for someone (um, sometimes I bribe people with baked goods).
So one day I was browsing the web and found the abstract idea of cake-cookies.
Literally cookies made from a box of cake mix!!
And I was like "Mein Gott! THIS IS HOW I CAN GET MAH CAKE ON!!!"
It was a way for me to have my white cake and eat it too, though not in cake form.
Deep, I know. Just try and keep up.

So over the next 4 months, I set out to perfect this recipe.
I was aiming for consistent, delightful cookies every single time out of every single box.
What I quickly found out is that I'm not too good at that sort of thing.
But gosh darnit, I sure made the heck out of them, and then pawned them off on to other people. Luckily, they didn't seem to mind too much :)

So without further ado and rambling, here they are!

Cake Cookies.
What you'll need:

• 1 box of cake mix, your choice of flavor 
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 large egg
• any additional goodies you'd like to add, such as chocolate or toffee bits or raisins or pretty much whatever. All is fair in love and cake cookies. 
• mixing bowl + an additional small bowl
• wooden spoon
• cookie sheet
• parchment paper (NOTE: DO NOT use wax paper. I did the first time and smoked the house up. Roommates were totally thrilled, as expected.) 
• an oven.

1) Combine all wet ingredients in the small bowl and whisk really well, then set aside.
        Also, preheat your oven to 350F. This is vital. 

2) Pour cake mix in to large bowl!
     Still with me??

3) Now add your wet ingredients to your dry, little by little, because some brands of cake mix require more moisture than other.
For instance, Betty Crocker's cake mix required almost 2 tbsp LESS liquid than Wal-Mart's no-name brand needed. If you have too much liquid it makes them kind of spongy which is too close to crappy cake for my liking. 

4) Once the desired consistency has been reached, pat yourself on the back. You're doing really good (C + N haha so proud). NOTE: If you feel like you want to shove the whole bowl of cookie dough in to your moth at once, you know you've got it right. It smells like heaven and starch. 

5) Spoon your cookie dough on to the cookie sheets that you PREVIOUSLY LINED WITH PARCHMENT PAPER (in step 3. No, don't go back and look, you already missed it. Just keep going.) and leave them in the ball shape. They'll flatten themselves out. Just leave some space in between them so they don't all stick together. 

6) Now here comes the tricky part: cooking them. And no, I'm not being sarcastic. Depending on your sea level and humidity percentage, your cooking time and results are going to vary. Heck, even for me, cooking them on a sunny day vs. on a rainy day yields different results. The temperature of the water can even change things!
But as a safe bet, set your first timer for 7 minutes, then check them every 1 - 2 minutes after. Take them out when they're still a bit soft in the middle, that way carry-over cooking won't make then too hard. 

Once they're done take them out of the oven, off of the pan and on to a cooling rack to do their thang.

And that's it!! That's the recipe for awesome, chewy, cake-flavored cookies. 

Enjoy! And make sure to let me know how they turned out - I'm a fan on knowing stuff. 

Kenzie