Red Velvet Cookies

If you haven't made anything for Valentine's Day yet and are looking for an easy treat you should must try these cookies! There are three reasons you should do this:
1) they are delicious;
2) they combine the delicious flavor of red velvet cake with the wonderful portability of a cookie;
3) they are stinkin' adorable. Seriously, look at those cuties!

I combined two recipes to make these - one (Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies) is your basic cake mix cookie, but rolled in powdered sugar before being baked. The second (Cream Cheese Cake Mix Cookies) is very similar, but you use cream cheese in the dough. So, I figured using a red velvet cake mix, but incorporating cream cheese into the batter, and rolling in powdered sugar would come pretty close to tasting like red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. It came pretty close, in my opinion, and either way, they taste great! I also cut them into hearts with a cookie cutter a few minutes after they came out of the oven - you don't have to, but it was fun! You could also add chocolate chips to the dough, or drizzle them with chocolate or white chocolate once they've cooled, instead of rolling them in powdered sugar beforehand.

Red Velvet Cookies
1 box red velvet cake mix
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. butter, softened
1 egg
powdered sugar, for rolling
1. Preheat oven to 360 degrees, and grease or parchment-line a baking sheet.
2. Cream butter and cream cheese together until creamy - 1-2 minutes. Add egg and beat again, 2 minutes.
3. Stir in cake mix by hand so you don't overmix it.
4. Using approximately 2 Tbls. of dough, roll into balls and roll in the powdered sugar.
5. Bake 8 minutes, remove from oven and flatten slightly with your hand. Return to oven for 2-3 more minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool a few minutes before cutting into shapes, if you desire.

On a Side Note: Aiden is a walking machine now - it's frightening. He has no fear. He'll definitely be our bumps and bruises kid. He's also a climber . . . The other day he was on Asher's trampoline and I went into the laundry room to grab clothes for the boys. Once I came out, Asher was on the trampoline, and Aiden had crawled on top of their kids' table and was just sitting there like it was totally normal. See what I mean?! FRIGHTENING! We'll see what these next few weeks bring . . .