xo - Catherine LA: Red velvet cake batter cookies

One of the things I love to do is cook/bake. The downside of my love of baking is that my husband won't eat anything I bake unless it's a strictly chocolate brownie or chocolate chip cookie. How boring. But this time around, I wasn't going to sacrifice what I wanted to eat because I knew my husband wouldn't eat it-- in fact, I kind of took guilty advantage of it. On one of our weekly grocery runs, I had to pick up more sugar (I use morena sugar for baking) and the boxed cake mixes were screaming at me. Knowing I wouldn't be able to eat a whole cake by myself, I picked up a box anyway because I can atleast eat a bunch of cake batter cookies alone or they'd be easier to share... you know, if I wanted to. So into my cart a box of red velvet boxed cake mix went.

Anywho, here's the finished product of my kitchen madness:

Looks good, right? Even my daughter couldn't wait for them.

See the recipe after the jump!

I took this recipe that I found on Pinterest and modified it a bit.

Red Velvet Cake Batter Cookies

- 1 boxed red velvet cake mix (doesn't matter what brand, I just picked up Duncan Hines)

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 2 eggs (room temperature)

- 3 tbs butter (room temperature)

- 2 tbs milk

- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

- 1/2 cup chocolate chips

- 4 oz cream cheese

- some kind of course salt (I used himalayan pink salt)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together cake mix and baking powder.

3. Fold in your room temperature eggs and butter. To be honest, I can't remember why I even use room temperature, but ever since I watched BenjiManTV say to use room temperature in one of his chocolate chip cookie videos it's just what I always do now. For cookies, I tend to just use a rice scoop/spoon vs. a blender so I don't over mix.

4. So at this point, you now have a drool worthy, bright red batter. Fold in your chocolate chips and then your walnuts.

5. Next, you'll want to add your cream cheese. Break it up with your fingers into small pieces and drop into your cookie batter making sure to spread then out. You want it to be distributed well throughout the dough. Fold it in but odn't over mix! You still want to see some of the cream cheese in your finished cookie.

Here is what my mixed dough looks like:

6. Drop tablespoon sized balls of dough onto a greased cookie sheet. I used butter because, well, I didn't have any non-stick cooking spray. You'll want the cookies atleast 1 1/2" apart but don't worry too much about spacing-- these cookies will rise more than they spread. That sounds awkward. I also cracked a little bit of himalayan pink salt on top because I LOVE the sweet/salty combination. You can also use sea salt if you have it or skip this step altogether.

Let's look at that yummy cookie batter close up, shall we?

Yum! Pop your cookies in the oven and let bake for about 8-10 minutes depending on your oven. In between, you can start cleaning up a little or if you're anything like me, sample your dough... but use a spoon because it stains.

Once the tops of your cookies start to look dry and they begin to slightly crack, remove from the oven and let cool before transferring to a cooling rack. Don't overbake!