Cake Mix Skillet Cookies
A boxed yellow cake mix, butter, and chocolate chips, baked over coals in a dutch oven.
- calories
- 490
- weight
- 2.6 oz
- cal / oz
- 188
- protein
- 5 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 25 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Snack
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Real dishes
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Yellow cake mix | 1 box (15.25 oz) | the dry mix is the whole flour-sugar-leavening system in one bag |
|---|---|---|
| Butter | 1/2 cup | left out of the cooler an hour so it will actually stir |
| Eggs | 2 large | carried in a hard case in the cooler |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp | |
| Milk chocolate chips | 1 1/2 cups | |
| Parchment paper | 1 sheet | cut to the base of the dutch oven |
Method
- Burn a fire down to coals well before you want dessert. You need about 20 briquette-equivalents under the oven and twice that on the lid, which is roughly a 350F oven.
- In a bowl, work the soft butter, eggs, and vanilla together with a fork or spoon until there are no yellow streaks left.
- Add the cake mix a third at a time and stir it in. The dough goes stiff fast, so switch to a sturdy spoon and lean on it.
- Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Line the dutch oven with parchment. Drop dough in balls about an inch across, two inches apart. Most 12-inch ovens take eight or nine per round.
- Set the oven on a thin bed of coals and shovel the rest onto the lid. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, turning the oven a quarter turn every few minutes so no side scorches.
- They are done when the edges are browned and the middles still look soft. Lift the parchment out, let them firm up for five minutes, then run the next batch.
A boxed cake mix is already flour, sugar, and leavening measured out and sealed against humidity, which is most of what makes cookie dough annoying to carry. Add fat, eggs, and chips and you have skipped every dry measurement at the campsite.
The dutch oven does the rest. Coals on the lid are what browns the tops; coals underneath alone will burn the bottoms before the middles set, so keep the bed under the oven thin and pile the heat above. Pull them while the centers still look underdone, because they keep cooking on the hot cast iron for a few minutes after they come off the fire.
Packing
Box mix, chips, and vanilla ride in the food bin. Butter and eggs go in the cooler. Pre-cut the parchment at home so you are not measuring circles with a headlamp.
Variations
- No dutch oven: press the whole batch into a greased 10-inch skillet, cover with foil, and bake on low coals for 20 minutes as one big cookie.
- Swap the yellow mix for chocolate or spice cake. The butter-egg ratio is the same.
- For a cooler-free version, use 1/2 cup shortening and 3 tbsp powdered whole egg plus 6 tbsp water. Texture goes drier but nothing needs to stay cold.
https://www.thisisnotdietfood.com/cake-mix-chocolate-chip-cookies