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Thursday, September 17, 2009

German Chocolate Cookies


Again determined to rid my cabinet of some baking supplies, I decided to use some German chocolate cake mix. I rarely bake with mixes, save for the occasional funfetti cake or ghirardelli brownie mix. However, tonight was all about shortcuts since I had already spent time making these. I found a recipe on RecipeZaar that used a German Chocolate Cake mix and I followed it exactly. Note, this recipe is vegan, which makes no difference to me but may appeal to those following a vegan or vegetarian diet!

These, like my crispy crunch bar cookies, are for a work bbq this weekend. I'm also bringing some of each to my sister-in-law, whose college family day we'll be attending this weekend. She and I once made an unbelievable german chocolate cake (without any cake mixes in sight!) and while I would choose a slice of that over cookies any day, I thought these turned out pretty well. They are very chocolatey and chewy, good traits of a cookie if you ask me! They also taste a little cakey, which makes sense given the cake mix base.

My first batch of these (it made 44 total), I just dropped rounded tablespoons onto my cookie sheet. They didn't flatten or spread at all, so for my next two batches I flatted the cookies a bit with the back of a spatula. Both ways they cooked fine and tasted okay, it just depends on how you prefer them to look!

German Chocolate Cookies (from RecipeZaar)

Ingredients:
1 package German chocolate cake mix
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and blend well. (I tried to do this with a large spoon instead of my kitchen-aid mixer, since the bowl was in the fridge chilling the crispy cookie dough...after about 30 seconds of attempting to combine, I quickly threw my dough in another bowl and cleaned the mixer bowl so that my kitchen-aid mixer could do the work. And I wonder why I have the world's scrawniest arms, ha!)
2. Drop rounded teaspoons of dough onto ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten slightly, if desired.
3. Bake for 8-10 minutes in the pre-heated oven.

Ingredients, pre-mixing (when I still thought I could do it by hand)

Kitchen-Aid saves the day!

Flattened and ready for the oven (they looked the same upon removal)

There you have it! Super easy and, according to RecipeZaar, less than 100 calories a pop! That's great news when you realize you've already eaten half a dozen of them ;)