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Holiday baking season is upon us. With Thanksgiving next week and Christmas only a month after that it is time to find some new, easy, tasty recipes to bake for all of the parties and family gatherings. I’ve already begun baking by testing some recipes from The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book. If you follow me on Twitter you may recall me uploading photos of my creations a few weeks ago. I chose two recipes to try the S’mores Bars and the Peppermint Bark Bars. I made the Peppermint Bark Bars and shared a few with my family and then I brought them to church and shared them with the kids in my Wednesday night Girl’s Clubs and they were well received by all. I brought the S’mores Bars to game night at church and everyone loved them but I must say they are best when served warm. I cant wait to try more recipes from The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book. Just click the link and order your own copy in time for your holiday baking.



As Kiddo doesn’t eat chocolate, I based my review on that fact. I found plenty of recipes that did NOT require chocolate, or whose chocolate chips could be substituted say with butterscotch chips or dried cranberries. We made the Peanut Butter Blondies, and added chocolate chips to 1/3 of the dish (for the adults). All that was needed was a yellow cake mix, butter, eggs, vanilla and peanut butter. Confectioners sugar and milk for a glaze.30 minutes later we had wonderful bar cookies! As you can see they were so delicious, didn’t get the glaze on before I could take pictures! Kiddo LOVES them. Yeah team we have a winner. This is a great little book, and I KNOW I will be coming back to it over and over. There are recipes that are gluten-free, made with Agave, and are made for large batches. I loved just about all the recipes! I know we will be using the book constantly during the school year! Plus, the recipes are perfect for last minute munchies and school vacations, as many are very kids making friendly! This would be a great cookbook to add into a baking basket for a Christmas present, for a friend who loves to bake. I highly recommend adding this book to YOUR cookbook shelf!

Last year I discovered cake mix cookies and was amazed at how easy and delicious they are. The main ingredient in cake mix cookies is just what you would expect – a box of cake mix.The basic recipe for cake mix cookies only requires a few ingredients, all combined in one bowl, and then dropped by spoonfuls onto cookie sheets, and baked. That’s it! You’re done! In just a few minutes you’ll have amazing cookies that are sure to get lots of compliments. I know when I make them they never last long in our house. One of the reasons we enjoy cake mix cookies so much is because they are easily customized. In fact, when I recently when I came across The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book: More Than 375 Delectable Cookie Recipes That Begin with a Box of Cake Mix by Camilla Saulsbury, I was astounded a book could offer so many variations of cake mix cookies!When I read that the author, Camilla Saulsbury, was winner of The Food Network’s Ultimate Recipe Showdown Best Cookie Recipe I was even more excited to see what her cookie book had in store. When the The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book arrived, I was excited to dive in and I spent nearly an hour paging browsing all of the recipes. Not only are recipes for traditional drop cookies provided but the book also includes bar cookies, giant cookies, cake pops, and others. It’s an amazing cookie resource. Over the past couple of weeks, Kora & Logan helped me make a number of the recipes. We tried the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunkers.We all enjoyed the chocolate and crunchy peanut butter combination so much that these didn’t last long. Most recently, we made the Basic Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies. These were incredible and so easy! This recipe was so good it was gone in less than 24 hours. We just couldn’t stop eating it. It was flavorful and delicious. The mix of the yellow cake and the chocolate chips made the cookies melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The book also provides a wonderful selection of holiday recipes.I recommend The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book to anyone who enjoys baking, especially cake mix cookies. The recipe ideas are unique, creative, and numerous. It’s a fantastic book that I know I’ll refer back to for many years to come.

I love almost everything about baking - the smells, the treats, the happy faces around the table. What I don’t care for are messy, complicated recipes that are too hard to prepare. The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book makes baking a delicious dessert easy as pie. All I need is a box of cake mix and a few other ingredients that are a stable in my kitchen, and voila - triple-chocolate gooey bars, pistachio-cherry biscotti, caramel chocolate chip cookies, fresh orange madeleines... the sky is the limit! This delectable cookbook includes over 375 recipes that start with a simple box of cake mix. The desserts are divided in three sections: drop cookies, bar cookies, and formed and filled cookies. Each recipe shows the type of cake mix that is used right next to the title. I love the clear directions and the useful tips throughout the book. Ms. Saulsbury has included even a handy lists section in the back. That is very helpful if you need to find a recipe for a specific occasion: kids’ favorites, health-conscious, bake sale, holiday, grown-up, and so on. There is even an extra index that groups recipes according to the type of cake mix. I’ll be keeping The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book on hand - especially with the holiday season coming up. My kids love helping out in the kitchen, and this cookbook is perfect for some fun and easy family cookie baking.



I am in love with this cook book! As a mom of two kids and an avid baker, I am always in the kitchen making some yummy treat. A must to have on hand is cake mixes and chocolate chips, this book makes baking simplified! Even beginners can transform into prize cookie bakers. I made the cookbook version of kiss cookies and they turned out great! Do you plan a cookie exchange every year? If so this would be a fun book to pick up to get some new ideas!






I admit that I’m a lazy chef. If there are too many ingredients or too many steps, I won’t even attempt a recipe. With my busy schedule, food preparation has to be quick and easy. And, of course, delicious! Thus, I was so excited when I learned about the cookbook: The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book: More Than 375 Delectable Cookie Recipes That Begin with a Box of Cake Mix, by Camilla V. Saulsbury. Every single recipe begins with a box of cake mix. Since the flour and sugar and many other ingredients are already mixed into the cake mix, it saves so much time! Just add a few more ingredients, and you’ve got a fantastic cookie recipe. Of course, the proof of a great cookbook is in actually using the recipes. So, I scrolled through the 375 mouth-watering choices and finally decided to make the Chai Spice Cookies. This recipe sounded intriguing because I love Chai Tea. The only ingredients are a package of spice cake mix, melted butter, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, cardamom, and slivered almonds. Ready-to-spread vanilla frosting is optional. And not only did they look good, but they tasted incredible, too. I can’t believe how easy this recipe was to make, and how well my cookies turned out. I can’t wait to try out another cookie recipe made from cake mix! I could spend several years just working my way through this book. Just about every single recipe sounds scrumptious to me! The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book is my new favorite cookbook ever. I’m already imagining the tasty cookies I’m going to bake for the holidays, bake sales, housewarming gifts, and just for fun! This book is a must-have for anyone who loves cookies, and would make an amazing holiday gift for your friends and relatives, too!

I recently received a copy of The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book: More Than 375 Delectable Cookie Recipes That Begin with a Box of Cake Mix to peruse and going over the book I found a couple of vegan friendly recipes. The newly released book is a second edition, originally from 2005, but now with over 200 more recipes added. And it is a big book of recipes – no photos but plenty of great sounding recipes. I don’t normally have cake mixes on hand but I can see the point – it is an easy no fuss way to have great desserts in under an hour. But I did have one quibble. Which was my fault. As I mentioned I don’t usually buy cake mixes. The only ones I rarely pick up are Trader Joe’s ones that have nothing artificial added (or worse partially hydrogenated oils). But to get a mix I have to drive a bit and I wasn’t up to it. So I used a mix from the local grocery store. There are vegan friendly cake mixes from the big companies (although if one has issues with sugar being vegan it isn’t worth one’s time). But unless you can get a pricier “natural” mix (think $3-5) you will get a crap mix with a lot of bad stuff – think modified food starch, polyglycerol, artificial flavors and a lot of stabilizers. Many brands even add fake coloring and soy or corn products as well. That is what $1 or so buys you. So to put it this way – your finished product will only be as good as the cake mix you buy. Lesson learned. Don’t be lazy While the finished bars smelled wonderful I could taste all the crap in the cake mix. Sigh. So in the end I tossed the bars, I just had a very metallic taste in my mouth (most likely from the baking powder in the mix which contained aluminum).
So please don’t take what I said above as a negative against the book! It is a solid cookbook. Just buy the all-natural cake mixes when you find them on sale!



Let’s face it: busy parents (me included!) need quick and easy recipes, and now that the temperatures are finally dropping in Texas, it’s time to think about fall baking. And while cupcakes are cute and pies are pleasing, in my humble opinion, nothing speaks of fall more than a plate of homemade cookies. With my new book in hand, The Ultimate Cake Mix Cookie Book: More 375 Delectable Cookie Recipes That Begin with a Box of Cake Mix, you will become a star cookie baker with almost no time or effort. All you have to do is stock your pantry with convenient, affordable cake mix and you can whip up a batch of fantastic cookies that look and taste like they were made by a pastry chef. Case in point, my Spiced Cranberry-White Chocolate Chippers. There’s no separate creaming of butter and sugar or sifting of flour: just add the cake mix, eggs, and butter in one bowl and blend away. The spice cake mix will fill your house with the scents of the holidays to come. So why wait? Don an apron, grab a bowl and a box of cake mix, and start mixing up some delicious fun.