I love to bake and my kid loves baking with me (yay!). He loves using the mixer and the chopper, and he likes dumping, stirring, whisking, kneading, frosting, and sprinkling. But man, it’s just too darn hot in the summertime to bake and add an oven into the heat index of the confines of my tiny, uninsulated house.

On the other hand, we do have a/c, so when the whining gets to be too much to bear (“momma, I want to bake something tooooodaaaaayyyyy, it’s been so looooonng!”), well, I usually give in because I have a baking recipe that is super easy and super-satisfying to T. It’s also quite easy to distribute the goodies out of the house when we’re done. And truth be told, I miss baking in the summertime, too.

The best things about my summer go-to baking recipe is that it’s a fake-and-bake cookie recipe that uses just one box cake mix, 1/3 c. oil, two eggs, and 30 minutes of your time from prep to clean-up. What? Yep, that’s right.

I’ll post the recipe as listed on the mix box and follow-up with my tweaks afterward.

Funfetti Cookie Recipe (from Pillsbury Funfetti Cake Mix package)

Ingredients:
1 (18.9 oz.) package Pillsbury Funfetti Cake Mix
1/3 c. oil
2 eggs
(optional) ½ (15.6 oz.) Tub Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Funfetti Vanilla Frosting

 Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F. In large bowl, combine cake mix, oil, and eggs; stir with spoon until thoroughly moistened. Shape dough into 1-inch balls; place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. With bottom of a flat glass dipped in flour, flatten dough balls to ¼ in. thickness.
2. Bake at 375 degrees F for 6-8 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool one minute; remove from cookie sheets.
3. (optional) Spread frosting over cookies; immediately sprinkle each cookie with candy bits from frosting package. Let frosting set before storing. Store in tightly covered container.

Makes: 3 dozen cookies

My tweaks to the above are:

1. I use a 2 inch cookie scoop, so my recipe yields about half the count above, or 18-20 cookies; I also always bake cookies on parchment paper atop my cookie sheets.
2. Bake larger-sized cookies for 8-10 minutes oven-depending; I also continue to cool the cookies on wire racks for 5-10 more minutes after removing from the sheets.
3. I opt out of frosting these as they are just fine on sweetness for both T and me as-is (a nice, cakey-but-chewy sugar cookie with candy sprinkle bits inside, yum). Of course, you can always set it up so the kids can decorate themselves, too, so there’s always that next level of hands-on activity before enjoying.

One thing I have not tried yet to date is to see whether this cookies-from-cake-mix switcheroo works with other brands of mixes, too. I have looked at the packaging of a couple of others I’ve purchased over the years and the quantity is slightly different from the Pillsbury one, as are the cake mix directions. But fret not, T and I will eventually give it a whirl (literally). Stay tuned!