Okay, let’s face it….It’s really difficult to get some basic ingredients out there with the shelter-in-place/stay-home/social distancing orders going on around the world. And one of the most difficult ingredients to find is any sort of baking flour and baking powder, at least where I’m at. So, what do you do if you want cookies and don’t have any flour???

Everytime I went to the grocery store and saw the flour shelf empty, I looked across the aisle and saw that cake mixes were fully in stock. BINGO! Full disclosure, this is an adaptation from a previous recipe I made using cake mix – edited to fit our pandemic perils!

I mean, it’s pretty genius since cake mix would have everything you need in it – sugar, flour, flavoring, leavening agents. And where I’m at, they’re way easier to find than regular flour. The best part is you can pick any flavor you want and customize it to what you have on hand!

Quarantine Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 box (15.25 oz) of cake mix – any flavor you want/can find! (I used a yellow cake mix)
• 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 large eggs
• Up to 2 cups of add ins – such as nuts, candy pieces, or dried fruits (I used semi sweet chocolate chunks and white “chocolate” baking chips)
• 2 tablespoons colorful sprinkles (optional) 
• ¼ cup powdered/confectioner’s sugar (to roll the dough in before baking)

Steps

1. Set a rack in the middle of your oven and preheat oven to 325° F.
2. Empty the package of cake mix into a large mixing bowl and add the melted butter. Combine until most of the mixture is moist and looks like damp soil.
3. Add in eggs and mix until well combined. This is gonna take some muscle work, but keep at it and the dough will come together and should be easily formed into balls.
4. Add your add ins and sprinkles to the bowl then mix until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
5. Form about a heaping tablespoon of dough into a ball with your hands, then roll in powdered sugar to coat. This step is important because it’ll help to make your cookies less greasy!
6. Place the sugar coated ball of dough onto a nonstick or parchment paper lined baking sheet. Lightly press down on the ball to flatten it just a little. These cookies don’t spread too much, so you can fit a lot of them onto a baking sheet.
7. Bake for 25 minutes, 20 minutes if you want a chewier cookie.
8. Remove pan from oven and let cookies cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes before moving to a plate to fully cool.

These will keep for up to a week in an air tight container, but I doubt that it’ll last that long since we’re all doing a little bit of stress eating these days!

In all seriousness, I hope you all are staying safe and that everyone you love is doing well during this pandemic. With this recipe, I’m not encouraging you to go out and buy these ingredients to make these. Just add it to your shopping list for the next time you head out to the grocery store. Be kind and courteous to one another out there!