Christmas Cookies: Irresistible Gooey Butter Cookies

'Tis the season for making memories in the kitchen and for sharing delicious homemade treats with friends and family. If you want to break from tradition and are in the mood for something a little different, a cookie that isn't generally associated with Christmas but that is addictingly good, this cookie would be it.

About ten years ago, my husband and I walked into a cupcake bakery and walked out with...cookies. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but I promise you that it isn't!

On the night that we discovered these delectable gems, my husband and had I caught a late-night movie and as we were walking back to the car, I was stopped in my tracks by the most amazing smell that I've ever smelled. I’m not a big dessert eater, but the glorious scent wafting from the cupcake bakery had me in a trance. We walked into the bakery, completely seized by the smell, and before our eyes were the most delicious looking cookies that either of us had ever seen.

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The bakery offered me a sample taste and it was in that moment, with that first scrumptious bite that I found myself questioning how I'd lived as long as I had and had never even known of the goodness in my hands.

I walked out of the bakery with a dozen.

After devouring the cookies, I went back to the bakery where I was able to talk (translation: strong arm) the young girl working behind the counter into giving me the recipe. Unfortunately, the bakery closed its doors a few years ago, but their cookie recipe lives on in my house and I'm hoping that it will in yours, too.

Gooey Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and while that's getting nice and toasty, cream together the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl. After the cream cheese and butter are creamed together, stir in the egg and vanilla, and then add the cake mix and stir until well blended. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls and then roll the balls in confectioners' sugar. Place the cookie balls about an inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 13 minutes and then cool for a couple of minutes on wire racks.