Cake Mix Cookies: German Chocolate

I actually feel like a mad genius for figuring these out. My all-time favorite cake is German Chocolate Cake. It’s my choice for birthday cake – or any other day of the year for that matter. It’s the frosting that makes it for me: creamy caramel, coconut, chopped pecans… oh my!

When I began to think of a recipe for German Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies I started to ask myself, “what makes German Chocolate cake a German Chocolate cake?” It was fun deconstructing the flavors in my head: caramel, coconut, pecan, chocolate.

It just makes sense to throw all that into one amazing cookie!

German Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 box chocolate cake mix (I used Devil’s Food, but certainly German Chocolate would be better)
• 1 stick of butter (melted)
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
• 1/2 cup diced pecans
• 1 cup caramel bits
• 1 cup chocolate chips (or chunks)

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl melt butter. I generally microwave mine for about 40 seconds – it looks like this:

And then I stir until it looks like this:

I do this to keep the butter from being too hot. I pour the cake mix on top of the melted butter and then add the eggs. This keeps the eggs from coming in contact with the hot butter (and turning into scrambled eggs).

Usually the butter has cooled enough to mix the ingredients together. The batter will be thick and sticky.

And now we add our German Chocolate frosting ingredients: coconut, caramel, chocolate pieces, and chopped pecans.

Stir to mix well.

It’s… so… BEAUTIFUL!

Drop rounded spoonfuls onto parchment paper and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350.

You might ask, “Amanda, what is your deal with parchment paper? You’re obsessed!”

And I will place a hand on my chest, lower my gaze humbly and reply, “I have my reasons.” The cake mix cookies flatten a bit and sometimes the morsels of caramel, white chocolate, or chocolate chips spill out onto the sides and get crispified (totally a word) on the baking sheet. After a few batches these spills burn up and then my smoke alarm goes off and the babies start screaming while the toddler runs around going, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Plus it makes the bottoms of the later batches kind of burnt. That’s no bueno.

See the spillage? By using parchment paper I’m able to easily break off the crispy stuff and peel it off the paper for a cleaner baking surface and tastier cookies.

And I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t bother washing the cookie sheet if I’ve used parchment paper. I just toss it back into the cabinets after I’ve baked. Nice and simple.

More time to enjoy awesome cookies!