The 12 Days of Cookies

Here’s a great idea for the holidays.

Instead of doing the traditional 12 Days of Christmas-complete with 7 swimming swans, 5 gold rings and partridge in a pear tree (just to name a few)-how about making cookies to give away beginning the 12 Days before Christmas?

And here’s one that our Bella girl Cammie made with rave reviews from her husband. Ironically, she just made these cookies again last week.

Day #1

Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies by Paula Dean

Ingredients

1 (8-ounce) brick cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick butter, at room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (18-ounce) box moist chocolate cake mix
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in the egg. Then beat in the vanilla extract. Beat in the cake mix. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to firm up so that you can roll the batter into balls (Camberley said that she skips the refrigerating step and they’re still pretty easy to roll). Roll the chilled batter into tablespoon sized balls and then roll them in confectioner’s sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 12 minutes. The cookies will remain soft and “gooey.” Cool completely and sprinkle with more confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

You’ve got to love a cookie recipe that uses a cake mix, doesn’t take all afternoon to make and costs a lot less than the traditional 12 Day of Christmas items-which according to the local new show I watch would cost you $90,000.00. Seriously?

Recipe and photo from Paula Deen on the Food Network