Funfetti Cookies

I have one word for you: YUM!

These are one of the most delicious cookies I've ever had the pleasure of putting in my mouth! They are soft, chewy, beautiful, and super easy to make. Now if there's one thing my endless surfing of foodblogs has taught me, it's this: if you've got cake mix... make everything but! I absolutely LOVE making cookies out of cake mix, it's one of my favorite things to do. It looks amazing, they take less than 20 minutes to prepare, and it tastes like you slaved over them all day long.

This recipe is so easy, I can do it in my sleep. This is literally all you need (except for vanilla. You need that too but I forgot to put it in the picture)! A box of funfetti cake mix (I like Duncan Hines, but of course you're more than welcome to use any other brand you like. Or even just plain white cake mix and add your own sprinkles!), 2 eggs, vegetable oil, baking powder, and my secret ingredient... Nutella. Yes, I couldn't help myself. In light of the GIANT tub of nutella sitting in the kitchen, I just HAD to make this a nutella swirl cookie; wouldn't you? These cookies are best when you cook them just long enough to brown them on the bottom. They end up gooey and yummy and just melt in your mouth delicious. While they're in the oven they puff up quite a bit, so when you take them out to cool, they fall and give you this beautiful crackle pattern on top which I would love to have on ALL my cookies.

Now that I've peaked your interest, let's get started! First grab a bowl and drop all of your dry ingredients in there. Whisk it up a little bit just to make sure you distribute your baking powder evenly. Then drop in your eggs, oil, and vanilla and whisk it all together. Now, it will be a little tough to mix together once you have about half the ingredients together and it will feel like you need more liquid in there, but just keep stirring and you'll be just fine, trust me!

Once it's all together, it should look something like this. Now here's the point where my mind went, "...why stop here?" And I responded, "... I see a bucket of Nutella..." and so my mind and I came to the conclusion that funfetti cookies need something... perhaps a few swirls of Nutella? And a few swirls of  chocolatey goodness never hurt anyone!

Add a couple tablespoons of nutella to the mix, and just fold it in halfway. You want to make sure you don't overmix it at this point because if you happen to do that, it'll be nutella funfetti cookies instead of just a swirl. You want to make sure you keep the integrity of both the funfetti mix and the nutella separately, so just mix halfway.

Now that you have everything mixed up, it's time to make the balls of dough. I tend to find that tablespoon sized balls are the perfect size. What I like to do might sound a little complicated in written form so I'll attach pictures. Take a leveled off tablespoonful of dough, scoop it out of the measuring spoon with a soup spoon, then let the dough drop off of the spoon onto the tray.

After putting the dough balls on the tray, I like to round them out a bit and flatten them a little bit on the top. I find that it keeps their shape a little more even when they spread in the oven. Once you've got all your dough separated into balls pop those bad boys into the oven for 8 minutes. 8 minutes is the perfect amount of time because you just want to brown the BOTTOMS of the cookies. You don't want to brown any other part of those cookies because that will overcook them and you want them to be chewy and delicious :)

When they come out of the oven they'll look really puffy like this; and now I know what you're thinking, "Hass, can I please just eat them right now? They are so tempting and they look so good, I NEED one!" And the answer is no. I promise you, patience is a virtue and it is a skill you MUST exercise on these cookies! Let them rest for 10 minutes on the pan, to give them a chance to solidify and come back together into a dense cookie.Once they've cooled slightly and tightened up, transfer them to a wire rack to cool even further.

At this point, they are just too good to resist anymore, so go ahead and take one and rip it apart! It's so very gooey and breaks apart so easily there's no way you could resist eating it!

Just look at that! I know I couldn't resist eating one (...or 3...), and I couldn't blame you if you ate the whole batch! These would be great as a holiday present, party favor, or just a reminder to friends how much you love them :) Enjoy these guys, I hear they're especially good on ice cream ;)

Ingredients:
1 box Funfetti Cake Mix (Any brand works fine. If you don't like regular funfetti, get a white cake mix and add your own sprinkles, jazz it up a bit with your own personality!)
3 heaping pinches of baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Nutella to taste

1.) Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix together cake mix and baking powder in large bowl
2.) Pour into the mix the oil, eggs, and vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly. It will be thick but keep going, it's worth the muscle gain!
3.) Swirl in nutella, do not overmix!
4.) Take tablespoon size balls and place them onto a greased baking tray. Bake in oven for 8 minutes or until the bottoms are just brown.
5.) Let cool on tray for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool entirely. Enjoy!