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doodlemancythey're meant to be made with a cookie gun/press, but you could definitely roll little balls and press them with the bottom of a glass, or one of those cookie cutters that's more of the like. smooshy kind that presses a design into the whole cookie. you WILL want to do this in a stand mixer, probably.
Divine Mana Of The Elves
Ingredients
• 1 standard size box of cake mix, white or yellow (strawberry and devil's food cake also turn out interesting if you're feeling wild)
• 2 egg yolks (separated from the white)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine (softened on the counter for a few hours)
• a big spoon and a bag of flour
• sugar sprinkles if you want (i forgot to buy any this year oops)
Directions
• DO NOT preheat the oven to 350. yet. because this is going to take a while but it's worth it
• beat together the egg yolks, vanilla, shortening, and butter/margarine until well blended.
• slowly add the bag of cake mix, about 1/3rd of the bag at a time.
• it'll probably still be pretty sticky at this point. start spooning in flour, one spoonful at a time, until the dough reaches a consistency where it's starting to gather on the beaters and can be easily pulled off in clumps with your hands. it should be soft, greasy and moldable, kinda reminiscent of play-doh or air-dry clay. that's the texture that will go through the cookie press the best. how much flour is required will depend on your cake mix.
• let the dough chill for about an hour in the fridge. this is a good time to make sure all your cookie sheets are cleaned, and parchment paper'd if needed.
• now you can pre-heat that oven to 350. while it heats, press into cookies onto sheets. at this stage, if you have sprinkles, you can sprinkle em.
• bake each sheet for about 5-8 minutes. take them out when they're just starting to brown at the edges. (they burn easily, and they'll kind of finish cooking on the sheet.)
• transfer onto a cooling rack, if you have one. give them about 5 minutes out of the oven before you move them to the cooling rack.
• when freshly baked and still hot, the flavor hasn't quite developed yet! leave them on the counter for a couple of hours. they kind of need to aerate, it's weird.
• EAT COOKY
Notes
• try to steer clear of "extra moist" cake mixes, although... that's kind of all of them now. find the driest cake mix you can find in the aisle. more moistness = more flour you'll need to add. i use Duncan Hines.
• all-purpose flour is fine, but cake flour is better.
• butter is a bit richer in flavor, but behaves poorly and spreads out more. you've already got shortening in there, so like... it's not like you're missing out much on the delicious fat. if you use butter, chill it longer and try not to let your dough get too warm while you work with it. my preference is specifically Blue Bonnet margarine.
• just butter or just margarine or just shortening does not work. trust me. you need the two different fats. TRUST ME
• do not try to do multiple batches at once. i did two boxes, one yellow, one white, and i didn't bother to wash the mixing bowl between them-- but even though it seems like it should scale up fine, putting 2x the ingredients into one bowl throws something off and things get weird.
• i know there's parchment paper in the photos but avoid it if you can. i just use it over my worst most scratched-up formerly-nonstick pan. it's ANNOYING with a press. although it does make it easier to pick up and move the cookies so YMMV
• my preferred cookie gun (not sponsored) is the OXO Good Grips one. i've had it about 4 years now and it's served me very well. i was wary of plastic (i grew up using an old metal General Mills cookie press) but it's held up even with some tougher batches of dough and it's easy to fill and clean. no rusty bits yet.
