Double Chocolate Chip Cookies - Grad Student Style

*Candied Bacon not included in this recipe

So Bret promised me his first-born child if I posted these to Recipe Go 'Round, and as there is no such thing better than a tiny little helper monkey, I must post it.

History 

It was given to my mother when she was getting her masters in behavioral therapy by another grad student.  The name of the original giver is lost to time, but the recipe remains.  It was a favorite of mine as a child and still is.

Also, this is probably the easiest recipe in the world.

Ingredients

• 1 box Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Fudge Cake
  
• 1/2 Cup Flour
  
• 2/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
  
• 2 Eggs
  
• 6 oz Chocolate Chips
  
• 1 Cup Walnuts (optional)
  

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 350˚
  
• Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl until everything is well incorporated.  The cookie dough should have a slightly glossy shine to it.
  
• Take a spoonful of dough or just tear out a chunk from the mix and roll into balls between your hand.
  
• Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 8-11 minutes.
  

Notes

I personally prefer the cookies to be slightly undercooked and allowed to cool for 15 minutes before eating them silly-like.  Also, the boxed cake mix doesn't have to be Duncan Hines nor the Fudge cake variety.  The cake mix does heavily influence the flavor of the cookie, so choose wisely.   From personal experience, strawberry cake mix does not taste that good.

A few handy cooking tips

Important words have been bolded for your reading ease & pleasure. If you've got any great tips, share them in the comments. Soon we will have a veritable army of tips, and we will be unstoppable.

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- To remove excess fat from chunky broth or stew, just place a lettuce leaf or two on the surface... and the fat will be absorbed.

- To hull strawberries without a huller (holla!), find a sturdy plastic drinking straw and push it through the bottom of the berry and up through the leafy end.

- To help keep your stovetop clean, place an overturned baking sheet over the unused burners. The baking pan will catch much of the grease and splatter and is much easier to clean. 

- Bonus oil tip! If you spill oil on the ground, sprinkle some flour over it, wait a few minutes, and it will be much easier to clean.

- To unscrew a small cap that just won't unscrew, grip a nutcracker around it and turn with that. Of course, you have to have a nutcracker for that.

- To make frothy milk without an espresso machine, just use an electric egg beater.

- When you have a party, and want to serve a lot of cool tasty beverages, simply fill your washing machine with ice and drinks. When the party's over, run the machine's spin cycle to remove the water.

- To cut very crusty bread, turn it on its side - easier to cut that way.

- To store bacon - roll up the bacon strips tightly in twos or threes or fours, and store them in a ziplock bag. This avoids the issues of frozen strips being impossible to thaw later.