Chocolate Cures Depression!

I've been slumping around the house today, with a headache, dealing with insurance companies and doctor's offices (hence the headache) and I just felt BLAHHH. 

I wanted something sweet to eat and nothing in sight was doing it for me.  I kept coming back to the computer but I had finished all of my "work" for the morning...so started mentally considering Thanksgiving goodies and what I'd be taking to my son's for our big meal in just TWO WEEKS!  That started to perk me up.  Really?  Just two weeks?  I love Thanksgiving!  I wanted to find a recipe I'd seen before for some Amaretti cookies so I scanned through the search results on Martha Stewart.com, JoyofBaking.com, and FoodNetwork.com.  All my favorite "jumping off" points for cooking and baking.  I didn't find the one I was looking for (I'll keep searching) but I ran across a recipe from Paula Deen for her Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies....and that sounded real good!  <imagine me saying it with a drawling Paula Deen accent>

Now, I've been a fan of this particular concoction since the late 70's, long before anyone ever heard of Paula Deen or Food TV (as it was called in the beginning).  A co-worker of mine entered a recipe into a cookie contest at my old place of employment, Shoal Creek Hospital in Austin, and I have made it for nearly every holiday since then.  It's a bar cookie and it is basically the Ooey Gooey recipe Paula made so famous! (not this cookie recipe - but the actual cake)  Now, my friend's recipe is made in a pan and cut into bars - and uses a yellow cake mix.  She called them Chess Squares.  Paula's cookie recipe had the magical word "chocolate" in it...which I was in dire need of today.  I decided to give it a whirl.

So, I sat the butter and cream cheese out to soften and looked in my "baking" cabinet and found that I had a German Chocolate "moist" cake mix - so thought that would surely do.  I have the batter chilling in the fridge right now.  I think it's about right for rolling!  (hmmm...guess I'll eat that sample piece of dough) <hee hee hee> It tastes delicious.  So, I'll get to baking!

the prepared dough

the rolled dough

the cookies right out of the oven

Here's the recipe - it is oh-so-simple...and these are a yummy cookie. 

Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies
Recipe from FoodNetwork.com courtesy of Paula Deen

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 rolling and dusting

Directions:
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 (I needed to scrape the bowl and beater a couple of times).  Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to firm up so that you can roll the batter into balls.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  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 (I used a baking mat).  Bake 12 minutes.  The cookies will remain soft and "gooey".  Cool completely and sprinkle with more confectioners' sugar if desired.

Now - here's what I found... the original recipe says to roll into tablespoon sized balls - and I did, using my 1Tbsp scoop.  My cookies look smaller than the picture on FoodNetwork.com.  The recipe also said it made 24 cookies.  Well, I rolled up and baked 24 cookies and I had about half the dough left...so I'm GUESSIN' they are more like 2 tablespoon cookies as shown in the online photo.  Since I like the smaller size, though, I'm sticking with the designated measurement and just counting it a bonus that there are more cookies than I expected!  When all was said and done - I had 3 and 1/2 dozen cookies.  Yay!

Guess what - these cookies are so good and chocolatey...I'm no longer down in the dumps and I no longer have a headache!  It's a miracle medicinal cookie :-)  You should try it!

Bon Appetit Y'all!!!