Pink Lemonade Cake Cookies

In mid-July I got a call from my mom who was incredibly excited about a cake mix she had just found for pink lemonade cake. Except she didn’t want to have it as cake, she thought they would make much better cupcakes and she wanted me to be able to try them…meaning that I would be making pink lemonade cupcakes when I got home a few weeks later. Fast forward to this week when I’m home and my mom thought it was time to make the cupcakes. I had been on board with the idea of cupcakes until about two weeks ago when my friend Leandra posted about the cake batter cookies she had just made. I hadn’t made cake batter cookies in about two years and had forgotten how amazing they were.

For those of you who have never made cake batter cookies, here are some reasons why you should make some right now:
1. They’re incredibly easy to make
2. They taste amazing.
3. These cookies stay softer much longer than most cookies
4. It’s easy to make a wide variety of cookie flavors (walk to the baking aisle in your grocery store and choose your favorite cake mix).
5. They taste amazing (on here twice for emphasis).

So needless to say, the cake mix was going to be made into cookies, not cupcakes. Lucky for me, my mom tends to get on board pretty quickly with my baking ideas, and she even suggested that we add frozen strawberries to the cookies! Now, I’m sure that somewhere out there, there is a recipe for pink lemonade cake/cupcake/cookies that taste pretty good and you’re more than welcome to use, but we used a cake mix. Also, if you’re interested in making cookie sandwiches, these make excellent cookies for that also.

Cake Cookies

1 Cake Mix
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup of Canola Oil
(Optional) Whatever you would like to mix into the cookies: fruit, chocolate chips, nuts, etc.
Frosting

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix together the cake mix, eggs, and oil. If you’re planning on adding anything extra to batter, add it now.
3. Roll the batter into one inch balls and place on a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet.
[The dough for these cookies was super pink! My mom also suggested that we add strawberries, but I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, so I added kept half of the batter without (above) and added strawberries to the other half of the batter (below)]

4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges are golden brown (be careful following the “golden brown” rule if the batter is any color other than white/tan).

5. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool. If you add fruit to the cookies and don’t eat all the cookies right away, the cookies will need to be refrigerated!
6. Frost the cookies if you’d like, I highly suggest it.

[Extra instructions, follow if you’re planning on making cookie sandwiches: roll the dough into balls a little bigger than 1 inch, split each ball in half and roll into a smaller ball. Place each ball on the parchment paper and then slightly push down with a fork. After you bake in the oven (for 6 to 8 minutes), let the cookies cool. Once the cookies have sufficiently cooled, frost the bottom side of the cookie  and place another cookie on top. Repeat until you’re out of cookies!]

These tasted really good! My mom had bought the pink lemonade frosting that went with the box of cookies, but I prefer to use cream cheese frosting. Both tasted really good, but I prefer the cream cheese frosting a little bit more. Also, the strawberries were an amazing addition, I was really happy that my mom thought to add them!