Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

Being a baker, I'd of course heard about Paula Deen's famous gooey butter cake recipe, although I had never tried it. I had never heard about gooey butter cookies, however, until I spotted this recipe on my friend Colleen's blog. My mom makes Thanksgiving dinner every year and never needs me to bring anything, but I always like to make a little something to add to the feast - usually a dessert. The only dessert my mom serves at our little Thanksgiving dinner is pumpkin pie, and since it's the only time of year I eat pumpkin pie, I don't mind that it's the only option. However, since I wanted to bake something, my mom asked for "something chocolate."

Side story: My sister LOVES pumpkin pie. Loves it. So my mom always makes a pie for us all to eat after dinner and a pie just for my sister. Each Black Friday morning you can find my sister staggering back up to her bedroom in her pjs carrying a whole pie, a fork and a can of whipped cream. I look forward to seeing it each year :)

Anyhow, back to the cookies. When my mom asked for her "something chocolate" I immediately thought of these cookies. I put the dough together Wednesday afternoon when I got home from work and baked them in them that night after dinner. These are SO easy - one bowl and five ingredients.

It is important to chill the dough for at least two hours, since it's very soft and you need to be able to roll them into balls. Mine rolled just fine and I covered some in powdered sugar as per the recipe, but I also rolled some in walnuts and some in coconut, since my mom and Nana are big coconut fans. These cookies also allowed me to use my the new sugar sifter I got from Jenny in the last What's Cooking gift exchange - thanks Jenny!

These are great cookies. Super chocolatey, soft and moist. Joe said they tasted like "pudding in cookie form." Give these a try when you're looking for a simple chocolate treat. Happy Thanksgiving!

Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies

1 (8 ounce) brick cream cheese, room temperature

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 (18 ounce) moist chocolate cake mix

confectioners'/powdered sugar, for dusting

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. 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.