I remember the day I needed cookies, but I didn’t have the energy for scooping and waiting for batch after batch to bake. I melted a stick of butter, cracked a couple of eggs, and stared at a box of cake mix. Twenty minutes later, my kitchen smelled like a buttery, vanilla-scented dream, and I was pulling a pan of golden, gooey chocolate chip cookie bars from the oven. They were the perfect cross between a chewy blondie and a soft cookie, with pockets of melted chocolate in every bite. It was the easiest baking victory of my life.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
You will absolutely love this recipe because it is the ultimate shortcut to homemade dessert satisfaction. With just three main ingredients and one bowl, you can have a pan of warm, delicious cookie bars in less time than it takes to preheat the oven for a traditional recipe. They are incredibly forgiving, perfectly sweet, and have that fantastic chewy-edged, soft-centered texture we all crave. It’s the perfect recipe for a last-minute treat, a bake sale, or when you need to satisfy a cookie craving without any fuss.
Ingredients
- 1 stick (½ cup or 113g) unsalted butter, melted
- 2 large eggs
- 1 box (15.25 oz) yellow cake mix
- 1 to 1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Optional: 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon salt
Now, let’s talk about these simple ingredients. That yellow cake mix is the star of the show. It provides the flour, sugar, leavening, and vanilla flavor all in one. I’ve tried this with both butter recipe and regular yellow mixes, and both work perfectly. The melted butter is crucial—it gives the bars a rich, chewy density that oil just can’t match. I once tried using vegetable oil, and the texture was more cakey and less satisfying. For the chocolate chips, I recommend semi-sweet to balance the sweetness of the cake mix. Feel free to add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to enhance the flavor, and if your cake mix doesn’t contain salt, a quarter teaspoon will make all the difference.(See the next page below to continue…)