Ladies...Start Your Ovens

Over the weekend my hubby informed me that his employees were walking by his desk last week asking where the treats were.  Apparently I made an impression on them last year when I did 25 days of baking, and they were expecting to see those same platters of treats showing up again this year.

Problem is, I have not been in much of a Holiday mood this year.  I don't even have a tree up yet, which is completely out of character for me.  I don't have the holiday blues or anything like that, I simply haven't been in the mood for it yet.  One day it will hit all of the sudden and red and green pandemonium will ensue.

But for now, I have decided to take this Paula Deen recipe and adapt it so that I can get some quick and easy treats over to hubby's work before they break in to a state of sugar deprived anarchy.

We start off with Cream Cheese, Butter, an Egg, Vanilla Extract, Espresso Powder (which I forgot to put in the pic) and your favorite Chocolate Cake Mix.

We mix that all together and add a bag of Peanut Butter Morsels, and about a half bag of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels.

Then we put the dough in the fridge to firm up for about 2 hours.

Then we put them on a baking sheet and bake them.

Lastly, we consume them with a glass of ice cold milk!

Gooey Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

1 stick of salted butter, softened
1 8 oz package of cream cheese at room temperature
1 large egg
1 tsp. of vanilla extract
1 tsp. instant espresso powder (opt)
1 bag of peanut butter morsels
1/2 bag of semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Mix butter and cream cheese on medium speed until well blended.  Add egg, vanilla extract and espresso powder (if you are using it), and mix again until all ingredients are well combined.

Add the complete package of cake mix to the mixture and mix on medium until it all comes together into a fudgy chocolatey dough.  Add the peanut butter morsels and chocolate chips and mix on low til just combined (you could also mix the morsels and chips in by hand).

Now cover the dough and let it chill in the fridge for about 2 hours so that the dough stiffens up.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Line your baking sheets with a silpat or parchment paper.  Scoop cookie dough by the tablespoon full onto the baking sheets leaving at least two inches between each cookie (they spread a good bit).  Bake for 12 minutes until the inside of the cookie is still gooey, but the outside of the cookie is dry looking.  Allow to cool on the pan for 5-10 minutes and then remove to a wire rack to continue cooling.

Yields 60 cookies.

Note:  The espresso powder makes the cookies taste even more chocolatey, but they are still wonderful with out it.

These are not the type of cookies I would regularly make, and I really detest the fact that I caved to using a cake mix recipe.  This recipe would not be Ina approved at all (I don't think).  However, for these purposes they will do just fine. ;)