red velvet cookies

DSC_7660

Today’s cookies are easy cookies.

Because it’s Sunday.

And because I’m baking cookie swap cookies today.

But I can’t post those yet.

And because BF couldn’t shut up about how good these were.

So today’s cookies had to be easy enough that I could make them and not interfere with my other baking.  But still good enough that BF couldn’t keep himself out of the kitchen.

DSC_7640

Inspired by Shannon’s beautiful 1-2-3 cookies.  She was embarrassed by how easy these were, but really, when you’re making a bajillion cookies for people, sometimes you need one really easy cookie.

I know I do, at least.

To make these more festive, you could color your topping green, or put Christmas-themed sprinkles on them.  Or you could make cute little Christmas Cookie Pops (similar to Shannon’s “caramel apples”… but maybe call them “ornaments’ or “holly berries” or something Christmas-y instead).

Oh, and did I mention that we made a cream-cheese-stuffed version?  I didn’t have the patience to freeze my cream cheese so it ended up kinda weaving itself through the cookie, which was actually rather delightful.

DSC_7647

Red Velvet Cookies

[ Printable Recipe ]

  • 1 box red velvet cake mix
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/3 cup + 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • Vanilla candy coating (optional)

If you want to add cream cheese filling

  • 4 ounces cream cheese
  • 1 tablespoon butter, softened
  • 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • tiny pinch salt (super tiny, MAYBE 1/8 teaspoon)

1.  In a large bowl mix cake mix, eggs, and vegetable oil with an electric mixer until smooth.  (It gave my mixer quite a workout).  Oh, and wear your apron unless you always wanted that shirt to have pink polka-dots anyway.

2.  Dump into dough-mound onto plastic wrap.  Wrap and chill 2 hours.

Once chilled, scoop into 1-inch balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheet.*

*Alternatively, you could scoop immediately and then cover with plastic wrap and chill 30 minutes to an hour. 

3.  When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F degrees for 8 – 10 minutes until baked through.   Let cool on baking sheet.

4.  Drizzle with melted candy coating in a haphazard manner.  Add decorative sprinkles before the coating dries, if desired.

If you want to add the cream cheese… 

1.  Whip cream cheese, vanilla, salt, and powdered sugar until blended.  Cover and freeze until firm, about two hours.

Once frozen, scoop into 1/2 teaspoon-sized balls.

When ready to form your cookies…

1.  Working in batches (so some can stay chilled in the fridge), flatten one of your cookie-dough balls until it is about 2-inches in diameter.

2.  Place cream cheese ball in the middle and pinch dough closed around it.  Roll until smooth and return to refrigerator for 15 minutes.

3.  Bake at 350F degrees for 11 – 13 minutes until done.

You may also like these Pumpkin Dessert Squares which cheat with yellow cake mix 🙂

pumpkin dessert (or breakfast) squares

2 thoughts on “red velvet cookies

  1. ermagherd! you stuffed cream cheese INSIDE MY COOKIES!!! What an excellent idea. What’s even more excellent is that you made these things. I was also cookie swap baking this weekend, and it was a comedy of errors (more on that later, you’ll find it humorous). a little 123 cookie action is the perfect remedy for recipe/baking overload.
    you know what? not cheating. i say that’s just a creative application of product to use yellow cake mix inside a pumpkin bar. There’s a well-known pumpkin bar recipe from Williams Sonoma which contains…wait for it…CAKE MIX as one of the ingredients. And if the purveyor of $70 mailed biscuits and ebelskivers can do it, then we can too.

Somethin' to say? Share it here!