Oatmeal Cookies with Cake Mix

A cake mix hack that turns a box of yellow cake mix into thick, chewy oatmeal cookies with almost no measuring. The cake mix replaces the flour, leavening, and most of the sugar you’d normally need, so the ingredient list stays short and the mixing is fast.

The trick to getting these right is adding the cake mix in two stages. Half gets beaten into the wet ingredients (egg, water, margarine, shortening, brown sugar, and cinnamon) until smooth, then the other half gets stirred in with the oats, raisins, and nuts. This prevents overmixing the second half, which keeps the cookies tender instead of tough.

Both margarine and shortening go into these, which gives you the best of both: margarine for flavor and shortening for a chewier texture that holds its shape. The brown sugar on top of what’s already in the cake mix adds extra moisture and a hint of caramel.

Pro Tips

• Drop by teaspoonfuls, not tablespoons. These spread more than a standard oatmeal cookie because of the cake mix’s extra leavening.
• Don’t overbake. Pull them at 10-12 minutes when they still look slightly underdone in the center. They firm up as they cool on the sheet.
• Any yellow cake mix brand works, but avoid ones with pudding already in the mix. They make the cookies too soft and cakey.
• Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring. They’re fragile when hot.

Variations

• Use spice cake mix instead of yellow for a pre-spiced version with ginger, nutmeg, and allspice built in.
• Swap raisins for chocolate chips or dried cranberries.
• Use pecans or walnuts for the chopped nuts.