Chocolate Cookies & Surprise Visitors

Tonight Autumn & I spent the evening at home just watching TV and relaxing.  I was in the kitchen doing dishes and walked into the living room to se this…Autumn chillin’ on the couch watching TV while eating crackers out of this zip lock bag she found in the pantry.  What a kid.  She wanted me to make sure I got a picture of her red painted toe nails…she is so proud of them and was THRILLED when I painted them a few days ago.

Since we were just at home watching TV, I decided to be the Baking Babes and make some cookies.  It’s a recipe from Paula Dean.  The cookies were good, but not something I’ll make all the time.  They were really messy to roll into little balls.  While my hands were covered in dough and powdered sugar, the doorbell rang.  I thought it was Liz & Liberty b/c I had told them to come over if they wanted to.  Since I couldn’t move the blinds (b/c I had dough all over my hands) to peek out the window and see who it was, I just yelled out, “Who is it?”  It was the Bishopric and they stopped in just to say hi.  They said they would have called ahead but my phone number wasn’t in the ward directory.  It was so nice to have them here and Autumn acted all shy at first and wouldn’t even look at them.  They would ask her a question and every time the answer was, “No!”  But, she warmed up by the end of the visit and loved being able to put the cookies we had made on a plate to share w/ them.  It made me feel so special and important and loved to have them stop in and say hi and just check on us.

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. 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.