Triple Chocolate Chip Cake Batter Cookies { + Snowcaps!}.

I keep telling myself I'm going to start living this life right. In the moment. Totally inspired. Doing what I love. Chasing the day with a cinnamon roll in each hand and a pocketful of sunshine.  

I'm still thinking about pumpkin spice muffins, peppermint dreams, and pink heart-shaped sugar cookies. Somehow life has gotten away from me. Wasn't it just January? No way it's already summertime. Didn't I just blow out the candles on my birthday king's cake?  

Real life is a whole lot less sun-filled pockets. It's work. Work like... heaps of laundry, paying our phone bills, saying I'm going to go to the gym, five AM wake-up calls, and running out of coffee creamer, always. You know. Really real life.

Oh man. I'm 26... and my life has already become a list of things I'll get to someday.

Can I tell you my favorite part of the day? It's the twenty-five minute scenic, lazy, coffee-fueled/still-waking-up drive to work... where I spend every blissful moment daydreaming up an alternate life/what I would do if I didn't have to work that day. I would spend hours lost in a book, curled up in the corner of some coffee shop with an endless fountain of sugary iced coffee. I would work out. That's real. Let's definitely do that.

I would go on a nature walk. I would buy a plane ticket to Paris.. or explore a corner of town (let there be bakeries!). I would finally see The Great Gatsby. I would I would bake cookies with cake mix and three kinds of chocolate chips. Or something sugary baked in a mini loaf pan. Maybe I'd figure out how to bake madeleines... and then dip them in chocolate because live life.

Can we cross some things off together?  Let's grow and learn and adventure a little this summer.

There's so much living to be done in this world. Let's take back our lives and start living them. 

And let it all start with that lavender manicure I've been daydreaming about. 

And doughnuts.... there just needs to be doughnuts.

Let's stop making lists and pinboards and daydreams and just jump into it already.

Let's also jump into triple chocolate chip cookies... because these fluffy chocolate clouds are made of dreams.   

Dreams, Snowcaps, and chocolate cake batter. I can't even.

Light and fluffy as chocolate cake and as chewy and rich as a triple chocolate chip cookie. They taste like a cakier version of my triple fudge Oreo crunch cookies.  

Because cake mix!

For the triple chips I used white chocolate chips + Snowcaps + milk chocolate Hershey's baking melts. I used those chocolate discs to make the perfect, chocolatey layers in my brown butter bourbon chocolate chip cookies... and I am completely obsessed.

Just look at those cakey centers! I love all the sprinkles that end up in the dough. It's so festive and makes me want to celebrate... well, anything.  

A tip: 1/2 cup of Snowcaps = 1 (3.1 ounce) box. Maybe if I'd known this I wouldn't have so many movie theater candy boxes lying around...

I totally would.

Live life: put Snowcaps in your cookies, see The Great Gatsby, and hold me accountable! Let's make this summer count.

Triple Chocolate Cake Batter Cookies {With Snowcaps!}

Printable Recipe

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups chocolate boxed cake mix (I used Betty Crocker Super Moist Triple Chocolate Fudge)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used Hershey's Milk Chocolate Baking Melts)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup Snowcaps candy (1 3.1 ounce box)

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, chocolate cake mix, cocoa, and baking soda. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the softened butter, sugar, and brown sugar until creamy. Mix in the eggs one at a time and the vanilla extract.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and Snowcaps.

Chill the dough for at least 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Scoop chilled dough into rounded tablespoons using a cookie scoop and place on a lightly greased or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Keep remaining dough in the refrigerator until ready to bake with. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. The centers will still appear soft, but the cookies will set as they cool. 

Allow cookies to cool on baking mat for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. 

Source: Cake batter chocolate chip cookies + triple fudge Oreo crunch cookies. 

Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

It's my birthday month and that means... cake, sprinkles, and bourbon.

I'm celebrating these last few days of being 25 by putting cake in my cookies. Because, you know. YOLO.

Or at least... YO25O.

YOLO also means that I can show you how sometimes your camera falls off your tripod... and then your tripod falls over and shatters your favorite cake platter and cookies and sprinkles go absolutely everywhere. That's real.

Also: look at those festive cookie butts!

Cake batter is a baking trend I tried my best all of 2012 to avoid. Not because I judge it (like cake pops) or because everyone everywhere is whisking cake mix into all the things, but because I'm weak... and it makes me want to eat spoonfuls of sprinkles and frosting.

I cracked this weekend halfway through Pitch Perfect and two glasses of sparkling wine. It was one of those rare, much-needed, Friday nights where I had the apartment to myself... which usually means a combination of pajamas, popcorn dinners, wine, me, the couch, a constant stream of Vampire Diaries episodes, glittery nail polish, spontaneous dance parties (I have this new addiction), and spur of the moment, totally uninhibited, just because and just for ME baking.

This is the kind of cookie dough that should be in cookie dough ice cream. In. Love.

These festive cookies baked up thick, buttery, and extra-sweet, with just the perfect balance of chewy chocolate chip cookie and sugary funfetti cake batter flavor. And they're perfect for just about any day. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays.

No, but seriously. Valentine's Day? Pink and red sprinkle hearts. Christmas? Red, white, and green! Boyfriend's birthday? Dinosaur sprinkles. They totally exist. Trust me.

There were so much fun to bake! I'll say it: it was totally all about those sprinkles (and maybe the two glasses of wine...). It was so different baking something just because I wanted to and something that I didn't intend to end up on here.

Unfortunately for you, these cookies need to be in the world; so this is me passing on a recipe gem to you. And they have all the fixings of regular chocolate chip cookies so really you need no excuses... just a handful of white chocolate and semisweet chocolate chips, a perfectly respectable 1/2 cup of rainbow sprinkles, and 1 1/4 cups of the all-purpose flour replaced with the same amount of scoops of yellow cake mix.

Yeah. Good luck not eating that cookie dough by the spoonful.

Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Printable Recipe

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups yellow (or white) boxed cake mix
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup sprinkles

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cake mix, and baking soda. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar until creamy. Mix in the egg and vanilla until well-combined.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until just combined. Gently stir in the chocolate chips and sprinkles. Be careful not to over-mix!

Refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour (to prevent the cookies from spreading too much when baking).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Scoop chilled dough into rounded tablespoons using a cookie scoop and place on a lightly greased or Silpat-lined baking sheet. Keep remaining dough in the refrigerator until ready to bake with it. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes or until edges are slightly brown. The centers will still appear soft, but the cookies will set as they cool.

Allow to cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Source: Sally's Baking Addiction.

Birthday Cake Popcorn.

So here's what happened.

Friday afternoon I was trying to recreate one of those fancy Disneyland cookies I'd told you about earlier in the week. And it started out beautiful and promising: chocolate chip cookie dough, white chocolate candy melts, gorgeous swirls of raspberry preserves, and chunks of rich dark chocolate... the sort of cookie dough that spoons were made for, if you know what I mean. Dreamy. Indulgent.

Except it spread into one giant mess of gooey, melted, pink-streaked chocolate.

It happened.

So I sulked on the couch and decided baking wasn't for me anyways and I should probably just quit and turn in my apron, except I really loved that apron and what would I blog about? and I was kind of still hungry and was it my birthday yet? because I was ready for another weekend at Disneyland.

Then it hit me.

I didn't want cookies. I wanted popcorn.

And I wanted it to taste like birthday cake.

So, even though there was an actual birthday cake sitting not too far away (and by cake I mean one slice because that may or may not be all that's left), I started chopping up white chocolate, all while googling birthday cake popcorn on my phone & eyeing that box of cake mix I bought sometime around February, but never used. Did cake popcorn exist? It didn't. Yes! Let's do this.

Fact: I want to eat this picture. 

I love white chocolate. Like... love. And I've been saving this brick of Ghiradelli for what feels like forever. Mostly because it cost me about $4 and this is a recession, but I was also kind of hoping I'd lose all self-control and it would be there for me, waiting behind the chocolate chips and leftover mini marshmallows, to be consumed in a fit of  pants-popping indulgence.

What? Stop looking at me. I didn't. 

I made the obviously healthier choice.

I melted it. And whisked in heaping teaspoons of yellow cake mix and rainbow sprinkles. And poured it over hot buttery popcorn and warm, melting miniature M&Ms. Then threw on more sprinkles. Wouldn't you?

Colorful!

It's sweet, addictive, festive and fun, with a subtle taste of birthday cake in every deliciously rich handful. Next time I think I'll try using a white, unbuttered popcorn and a teaspoon or two more of cake mix (maybe funfetti?), but for now, buttery, salty popcorn + cakey white chocolate = mind-blowing deliciousness.

Cake batter popcorn. Do it.

Birthday Cake Popcorn

Printable Version

1 bag of popcorn, popped
8 ounces of white chocolate candy coating, melted (I used Ghiradelli white chocolate and a handful of white chocolate melts)
4 heaping teaspoons of yellow cake mix
Mini M&Ms
Assorted sprinkles

Pop popcorn and spread out on a paper towel, removing any kernels or burnt pieces, and place in a large bowl. Mix in mini M&Ms. 

Melt white chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until melted and smooth. Stir in cake mix until smooth, then stir in about 3 teaspoons of sprinkles. Immediately pour over popcorn. Using a wooden spoon, mix the popcorn and M&Ms until completely coated. 

Pour out onto wax paper or into a wax-paper lined jelly roll pan and spread into a single layer. Sprinkle with sprinkles until festive, then let cool and harden. Break into pieces and enjoy! 

Source: A Bakergirl original.

Would it be wrong to eat this on top of ice cream?