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Cake Mix Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Quick and easy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies made with only 4 ingredients including a cake mix.

I’m sure that you’ve seen and probably even made this really easy cake mix pumpkin cookie recipe; it’s been floating around the internet for years. I wanted to share it with you today, not because it’s new, but because it’s awesome. And with my tips and tricks, it’s even better.

What’s my secret?! An EGG! The addition of one egg to the cake mix, pumpkin puree, and chocolate chips makes all the difference. That and not under-baking the cookies. Those two things are the secrets to these simple cookies. The egg acts as a leavening agent and helps to make the cookies less gummy. Cooking them a full 12-14 minutes also helps them to not be gummy and sticky either. Nothing too new or exciting but a few little things can make a big difference when it comes to a recipe with a super short ingredient list.

These cookies are so simple that my kids can make them almost on their own. My oldest loves to have friends over and bake. They’ve had many (MANY) kitchen disasters. I think it’s a great learning experience. But when I think it’s a good day to have a treat turn out, I’ll encourage them to make this recipe. It’s easy and you can’t mess it up. Nothing wrong with starting with a cake mix in my book (I use a cake mix in each of these recipes: Vanilla Sheet Cake, Homemade Soft Oreos, Grandma Shoaf’s Chocolate Sheet Cake, Cheater Brookies (Chocolate Chip Cookies + Brownies), Cheater Gooey Pumpkin Butter Cake, Cheater Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars). See? There is a time and a place for cake mix. It’s a great starting point for new bakers and busy mamas alike.

Quick and easy pumpkin chocolate chips cookies made with only 4 ingredients including a cake mix.

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Easy Oreo Spider Halloween Snacks

Easy Oreo Spider Halloween Snacks are made with cookies, licorice, and chocolate candies and make the perfect edible craft project.

I have planned on sharing this “recipe” for our all-time favorite Halloween snack with you for years and years. Every year I think that this will be the year that I get a few pictures and share with you, and this is the year that I finally did it!

I know my Oreo spiders don’t look like much, but that’s just it. They are so fun and easy that you’ll be making them over and over again because all they require of you is a trip to the grocery store. I have been making these spiders for decades! I made these with my mom growing up in Indiana, and I have made them every year since I moved out of the house. I can remember making them in college to take to a little party, I’ve made them with my own kids for at least 10 years. We love to make these for our “BOO!” plate (where we doorbell ditch our neighbors and friends – get the cute poem to go with the goodies here), and they are so nostalgic for me that I know I’ll be making them for years to come. Quick, easy, and cute – that’s all there is to them.

I love that this recipe can be made with the smallest of kids. Most little ones can stick something into the middle of the Oreo. They aren’t messy at all, and they take no preparation on your part. As simple as they are, I know that you’ll love them as much as I have over the years! Happy Halloween snack making, friends!

This post is part of a little Halloween event my friend Tara from Tara Teaspoon and I are hosting! We’ve dedicated a few days in a row to sharing our favorite Halloween recipes! Today Tara is sharing the cutest Halloween Spiderweb Caramel Apples. I love caramel apples with my whole heart and these are cute to boot. I can’t wait to try the recipe.

Easy Oreo Spider Halloween Snacks are made with cookies, licorice, and chocolate candies and make the perfect edible craft project.

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5 Easy No-Bake Halloween Treats

5 fast, kid-friendly, no-bake Halloween treats that are so easy to make, your kids could do it on their own.

Who else loves all things October?! Bring on the pumpkins, parties, homemade donuts, and all things fall! These super easy no-bake Halloween treats are my little gift to you to start your month off right. These are so easy, super cute, and perfect to take to a party or to plan for your kids to make after school.

I love little treats like these because they feel like they are almost an edible craft project. Fun to make and fun to eat! My no-bake Halloween treats feature store-bought items so that you really don’t have any prep to do ahead of time. You probably don’t need a lot of instructions to make these, but I’ve gone ahead and written it all out for you including tips and tricks on where to find everything you’ll need to make your Halloween treat-making party a success.

This post is part of a little Halloween event my friend Tara from Tara Teaspoon and I are hosting! We’ve dedicated a few days in a row to sharing our favorite Halloween recipes! Today Tara is sharing the cutest Halloween Pumpkin Marshmallows on Cupcakes . Seriously how cute are those? I LOVE how festive these are and can’t wait to make them with my kids. Check them out!

5 fast, easy, kid-friendly, no-bake Halloween treats that are so easy to make your kids could do it on their own.

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Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Zucchini Cookies

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Zucchini Cookies made with whole wheat flour, oats, chocolate chips, pecans, and shredded zucchini.

Did you know you can toss zucchini oatmeal cookies, throw in some chocolate chips, and have yourself one beautiful cookie that is full of veggies and whole grains?! Well, you can! It still has its share of sugar and butter but I like to think that the whole grain oats, whole wheat flour, and zucchini help add some nutrition to the ever popular chocolate chip cookie. I’m not going to pass these off as a breakfast or healthy cookie, but I sure don’t feel bad when my kids are eating dessert with vegetables hanging out in them.

I LOVE this recipe because it’s all the things you love about zucchini bread, mixed with everything you love about oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. You’ve got that lightness and moistness from the zucchini and the spices from classic zucchini bread and then you have that great texture from the oatmeal and the chocolate, because, well, chocolate. Chocolate chip zucchini cookies are a fun twist on a classic recipe, and one that I know you’ll be making over and over all zucchini season long!

This post is part of Zucchini Week here on Bless This Mess – a week dedicated to all things zucchini. Stay tuned all week long to get 5 new sweet and savory zucchini recipes.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Zucchini cookies made with whole wheat flour, oats, chocolate chips, pecans, and shredded zucchini.

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Neiman Marcus Cookies

The famous Neiman Marcus cookie recipe made with ground oats, butter, and mini chocolate chips is sure to be a family favorite in no time.

I have been hanging onto this recipe for far too long and I just can’t wait to share this fun chocolate chip cookie recipe with you. There’s a story floating around about famous Neiman Marcus cookies – someone asked for the recipe and then the restaurant billed them an exorbitant amount for the recipe. So to spite the restaurant, the woman shared it with all of her friends. I have no idea if that story is true or not, but I’m just glad this recipe isn’t a secret!

What makes this Neiman Marcus cookie recipe a little different than a traditional chocolate chip cookies recipe is that it has ground oats (which add great texture and flavor to the cookie), lots of butter, and mini chocolate chips which means you get a little bit in every bite. Ground oats can be made by placing dry oatmeal in a blender, coffee grinder, or food processor and processing until the oats turn into flour. It’s a small extra step, but it’s what makes these cookies unique.

This recipe is from my sister-in-law. She always makes these cookies pretty small (as indicated in the recipe) and that is another thing that I love about them. When the cookies are mini, you feel like you can eat a bunch of them, right?! These are great to make when a crowd of kids are over at your house or for a party too since small cookies go extra far.

The famous Neaman Marcus Cookie recipe made with ground oats, butter, and mini chocolate chips, is sure to be a family favorite in no time.

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M&M’s Skillet Cookie Recipe

Warm and gooey skillet cookie recipe made with butter and brown sugar and topped with M&M’s – perfect with a scoop of ice cream.

This is the first skillet cookie to hit the blog and I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to get you a really simple skillet cookie recipe. I love these things! They are the easiest, most fun, casual but pretty dessert around. They are essentially a giant cookie that you make and bake all in the same skillet. The edges crisp up like a normal cookie but the middle stays soft and gooey, kind of like a chocolate lava cake.

The best part is adding a scoop of ice cream to the top of the skillet cookie after it comes out of the oven and letting it get soft on the hot cookie. I like this dessert because it’s casual. I just scoop the ice cream in a pile in the middle of the cookie and pass out spoons and we all dig in. This is a great recipe for a night in with the family or a girls night. If you aren’t into sharing a dessert, you can dish the skillet cookie up into individual bowls. It’s a bit messy, but it still tastes great.

I love using M&M’s when it comes to fun desserts because they are so bright and colorful and it’s pretty fun to use seasonally colored candies at the appropriate time of year. Who doesn’t love bright festive M&M’s in their cookies?!

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Spring M&M Oatmeal Cookies

Oatmeal cookies made with butter and brown sugar, topped with colorful M&M candies to make the cutest spring dessert; plus they taste great too!

I love oatmeal cookies with my whole heart. I find myself making just a handful of cookies over and over again and I never tire of them. My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe is on repeat almost weekly and then there is this super simple recipe for oatmeal cookies. It’s made with a heavy hand of butter and brown sugar, a little flour and oats, and lots of love. This version has M&M’s in it and it’s a favorite for two reason: 1. Chocolate makes everything better. 2. I love using seasonal M&M’s to make cute cookies without any added effort on my part. Seriously though, why are seasonal M&M’s so cute?

I love these oatmeal cookies because they are just the right mix of soft and crisp, and sweet and simple. They always turn out perfectly and they come together in a snap. These are the kind of cookie that you can depend on because they just don’t let you down. They are also a great candidate for after school baking/snacking because a batch makes about 3 dozen cookies which means you’ll have enough to feed your kids plus the friends who filter in the door, but not so many that you’ll be tempted to eat them for breakfast for the next week. But don’t worry if you do decide to eat oatmeal cookies for breakfast, they have whole grains and eggs in them… practically breakfast food in my book.

Enjoy these with a cold glass of milk and get your kids in on the sticking-M&M’s-on-the-top-to-look-cute part. That’s always the part my little people love. Be warned though, they seem to eat as many M&M’s as they stick on the cookies – plan on buying double what you need.

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Easy Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Easy chocolate shortbread cookies are lightly sweetened, crisp, buttery cookies made with just 6 simple ingredients.

Raise your hand if you love shortbread!!! I, for one, love shortbread cookies and today I’m sharing with you one of my favorite recipes for easy chocolate shortbread cookies. I love how crispy, buttery, and melt-in-your mouth these cookies are. They aren’t super sweet either, which means eating them for breakfast with your favorite tea is totally fine in my book. I like this recipe, too, because instead of having to make pan after pan of drop cookies, you just make one big cookie, score it into wedges, and then cut it while it’s still hot. One giant cookie is always a good idea.

A simple recipe with a short list of ingredients is fun to keep on hand so that when the kids are begging for a baking session or you get bitten by the baking bug, you’ll have something quick and easy to put together without much planning or a trip to the store. Sometimes simple just wins!

Eat these with your coffee or tea for a mid-afternoon snack because they are so simple without being overly sweet. You are going to make this recipe again and again.

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Honey Pecan Slice-and-Bake Cookies

Honey Pecan Slice-and-Bake Cookies are simple to make with honey, pecans, and butter then rolled and sliced.

Slice and bake cookies are one of my favorites to keep around this time of year and through the cold winter months. There’s something so fun about being able to grab a roll of cookie dough from the fridge, slice it into little circles, pop them on a baking sheet, and bake until golden and hot. Warm cookies straight out of the oven are perfect with a cup of hot tea, to follow up an afternoon of sledding, or to have on hand when company stops by.

These honey pecan slice-and-bake cookies are an old recipe from my sister-in-law’s aunts who grew up in Alabama where pecans and honey were readily available. I love the flavor of the nuts and honey together with the sweet butter and sugar. These simple cookies are lightly sweet, just crunchy enough, and have a mild honey flavor that compliments the nuts just right.

You are going to love this easy recipe and make it again and again just to have something a little sweet waiting for you to bake it up.

Honey Pecan Slice and Bake Cookies are simple to make and made with honey, pecans, and butter then rolled and sliced.

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The BEST Chocolate Mint Recipes

Delicious collection of chocolate mint recipes to make for dessert whenever a mint chocolate craving hits!

Treat season is here in full force, and what better way to celebrate than with some chocolate mint recipes? Chocolate and mint are one of the most classic combinations (aside from my very favorite, chocolate and peanut butter), so it’s no wonder that the internet is teeming with chocolate mint recipes. As always, I am here to serve you, so I have taken the liberty to procure a list of the very best chocolate mint recipes in all of the world wide web. You’re so very welcome. Check out these chocolate mint recipes when you’re looking for something to bring to your holiday gathering this month – you (and your fellow party-goers) won’t be disappointed!

I’ve included some recipes from Bless this Mess (like mint chocolate dipped cookies, homemade thin mints, and homemade peppermint patties!) as well as recipes from around the web that looked delicious and fun. I can’t get enough of this combination and I know you are going to love all of these recipes.

Enjoy from my kitchen to yours! And do tell, what is your favorite mint chocolate recipe?!

Delicious collection of chocolate mint recipes to make for dessert whenever a mint chocolate craving hits!

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