Perfect Party Cookies

I've really been on a baking kick lately. I just love to be in the kitchen and baking. I love when my recipes turn out, I love when my kitchen smells of whatever is happily baking in the oven, I love the smiles on faces when someone tries something I make and they enjoy it. Baking is also a great stress reliever for me.

The only thing I don't love? Having cakes, cookies, muffins, cupcakes sitting at home and staring me in the face. I do not have very strong willpower. I will eat them. So, when I can make something and bring it to someone or somewhere I'm the happiest! I get to do something that I enjoy, gift it to someone and call it a day without adding any calories to my daily intake.

I made a double batch of these cookies one day last week to bring to my Dentist appointment and to a staff meeting at work. Who brings a box of cookies to their Dentist, right? Well, my Mom used to work at this Dentist office so I know them pretty well. I knew they wouldn't mind getting a little box of sweets for a lunch time treat.

They went over well at both locations. The Dentist emailed me and said "I just ate one of those chocolate chip cookies and thought I had died and gone to Heaven. THANK YOU soooo much for bringing them in. You are the best." Now, if that's not a compliment, I don't know what is. At our staff meeting, a coworker had three of them before we even left the meeting room. Again, I'd say that's a pretty good compliment.

You will not be disappointed when you make these cookies. They're so easy to prepare and not to mention, you don't get that many dishes dirty. You don't even need a kitchenaid/stand mixer! I mixed this all up with a spatula! One thing to note, if you're doubling the batch like I did, make sure you have enough sprinkles on hand. You'll need 8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) of sprinkles. I might have a sprinkle obsession and had plenty of them, but I don't know if non-baking households will have a sprinkle surplus like I did.

This would be perfect  to make with kids. Not too many ingredients, simple measurements and they look fun and festive. They're sure to catch a kid's eye!

This was my second time making a double batch. Can you tell I had to get creative with my sprinkle options? We've got a little Christmas sprinkles, some Spring-time sprinkles and some rainbow sprinkles.

Perfect Party Cookies
Source: Stephanie Cooks

Ingredients
1 cup of flour
1 cup of boxed yellow cake mix
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup butter melted & cooled slightly
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
4 tbsp sprinkles of your choice

Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Sift together your flower, cake mix and soda, set aside. In a large bowl, beat together the melted butter, egg, egg yolk and vanilla until slightly creamy. Add the sugars and stir well.Add the flour mixture, stir well to combine. Add your chocolate chips and sprinkles, sitr well to combine.

(At this point in Stephanie's recipe, she says to refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes because the dough will be runny. I've made these twice now and did not have runny dough either time. Use your discretion. If your dough is runny, refrigerate for 30 minutes. If it's not, you could charge on and not worry about refrigeration.)

Using a cookie scoop, place dough onto a greased cookie sheet. Keep dough cool in between batches. I did put mine in the refrigerator while a batch was baking.

Bake 12-15 minutes until the edges are golden brown and the center sets. Cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet and remove to a wire rack.

Personally, I love a cookie that is a little crisp but also a little chewy so I took them out at the 12 minute mark, let them cool on the sheet and then transferred them to the wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies were even worthy of me taking out my cookie jar from the cupboard! I still have some dough at home in the refrigerator. I think I'm going to bake up some cookies and sell them, bake sale style, at my garage sale this weekend. Like I said, I don't want to add too many calories to my daily intake!

Comments:

For some reason, when I made these last night again, they ended up being really thin. They spread out so much on my cookie sheet. I ended up only being able to put 6 on a cookie sheet at a time because they spread so thin. Personally, I loved them this way. The outside was just crisp enough, but they were still chewy. My Husband said "I feel like I'm eating a wafer." However, her liked them enough to still eat two.

I'm not sure what I did. I think because I was multi-tasking in the kitchen, I probably added a little bit too much, or not enough, of something. I still enjoy them, but just make sure to watch your measuring!  

Or else you'll end up with a giganto cookie!