Unicorn Cake Mix Cookies

So, this is what they're supposed to look like. Image found here.

I had a bag of unicorn chocolate chips, and I wanted to use them somehow. I thought about making cookies, and when I saw this recipe on the Sugar Dish blog using cake mix, I thought it would be pretty easy. 

Ingredients

• ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
• ¾ cup packed light brown sugar
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1¾ cups all purpose flour
• 3 1/4 ounces white cake mix
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 (10 ounce bag) Unicorn Pink & Blue Swirled Vanilla Chips

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl beat together the butter and sugars until fluffy. Add the vanilla and egg and beat until just combined.
3. Mix in the flour, cake mix, baking powder, and salt. Continue mixing until the dough *just* comes together.
4. Stir in most of the Unicorn Chips, reserving about 1/4 cup to top the cookies before they go in the oven. Don't over-mix.
5. About a tablespoon at a time, portion the dough out onto an ungreased baking sheet, spacing the cookies about 2" apart. Add a few chips to the top of each cookie.
6. Bake for 9-11 mins (9 minutes is always perfect for me). Your cookies might look slightly under-cooked - it's ok!!! They are done. Over baking takes away the chewy texture.
7. Let them cool for a few minutes before removing to a rack to cool completely.

Now, if you have read any of my other baking blog posts, you know that I frequently change up the ingredients, adding or subtracting as I like. I did it this time, but it was a BIG fail. Instead of trying to calculate the number of cups 3.25 ounces of cake mix equals (and be left with a lot of cake mix), I just scrapped the rest of the dry ingredients and JUST used 2.5 cups of cake mix. Well, that didn't work:

Very flat, underdone, puddle cookies

I tried to salvage them by using a cookie cutter to make cute unicorn shapes (my roommate's idea):

But when I tried to scrape them off the pan, the undersides were still completely wet. The cookies completely fell apart, so now I have a container full of half-baked cookie bits that I'm trying to figure out what to do with. So far, all I can think of is putting it on top of ice cream. I hate to let food go to waste! Any other ideas?

What do I do... with this?

I did bake the second sheet of cookies for a little longer, so those came out as actual round cookies. But they are past golden-brown, and so they're a little crunchier than I would like my cookies. 

One unicorn made it out... just barely.

Bummer! I'll follow the recipe a little more closely next time.