Upgrade Cake Mix Cookies With The Help Of Cool Whip

Making cookies completely from scratch is all well and good if you have the time and inclination to do so, but it's a lot easier (and the results taste just as good) if you take a shortcut, such as starting with a box of cake mix. Cake batter is fairly liquidy, but if you leave the added water or milk out of the mix, you'll wind up with the denser consistency of cookie dough. In this Cool Whip cookie recipe from Mashed developers Courtney and Stacey Moeslein, however, the cake mix gets an extra boost from a tub of whipped topping.

The whipped topping makes the dough extra airy so the cookies bake up light and fluffy. You need a light hand when stirring it in, though, because overmixing batter or dough develops its gluten and can lead to baked goods that are tough and overly chewy. Vigorously beating the whipped topping, too, may cause it to deflate and lose its airiness, so the Moesleins suggest using a rubber spatula to fold this ingredient gently into the dough.

The cookies in this recipe are made with lemon cake mix and lemon extract, as Courtney Moeslein feels that the citrus flavor "makes these the perfect refreshing summer cookie." As Cool Whip doesn't make a lemon-flavored version, she sticks with the standard kind, but if you want to switch up the cake mix and extract flavors, there's a chance you could find a whipped topping to match.

If you want to go with yellow cake mix, then vanilla extract and vanilla-flavored whipped topping would make for a delightful combination. You could also use white or strawberry cake mix with almond extract and strawberry whipped topping.  Alternatively, you can make cookies with chocolate cake mix, vanilla extract, and chocolate whipped topping. Cool Whip even makes a double chocolate variety with brownie bits that would give you an extra chocolatey cookie. Yet another whipped topping flavor that would go great with chocolate cake mix would be peppermint, but in this case, we'd probably swap out the vanilla for peppermint extract and maybe even add some smashed candy canes to the dough or sprinkle them over the top of the cookies.