Surprise Surprise......Cookies with Mojo!

I have a confession: I am a cookie snob!!! I didn't realize this until recently but I really am picky when it comes to other people's cookies, I think it happened when I started to bake all the time. Therefore, when my officemate brought in some cookies that his girlfriend made for us,I had one expecting to like it but not love it and BOY WAS I WRONG!!!!! I couldn't stop eating them and that is when I then recruited other people at work to come and eat them to help save me from myself! So when I was home this weekend I decided it was the perfect time to try them out and boy were they delicious! My dad said they were just as delicious cooled as warm. Also, I think it helped break me out of my non-baking funk......lots of baking to come now!



They are called Michael's cookies named after my co-workers girlfriend's (Lauren's) brother......


MICHAEL'S COOKIES

Ingredients:

1 box fudge marble cake mix (I like Duncan Hines brand)

1 egg

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 tbsp water (+ 1 tbsp water used later)

1 cup chocolate chips (half of a 12 oz bag).

Optional: 1/2 cup chopped walnuts


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2. In a large bowl, combine white part of cake mix with all ingredients above (set aside the chocolate part of the cake mix and the extra 1 tbsp water). Mix with a wooden spoon until blended. (you can use a food processor, just leave the chips and nuts out and add by hand later). Batter should feel like cookie dough - if it is too wet, add a little flour and refrigerate until it hardens. If it is too dry, add a little more water.

3. Transfer 1/4 of the white dough to a small bowl. Add the chocolate part of the mix, plus 1 TBSP water, to the white dough and blend well, until you create a chocolate dough.

4. Swirl the chocolate dough into the remaining white dough until it looks marble-like.

5. Place generous spoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and cook for 10 minutes (the recipe says 12 to 13 minutes for small cookies and 13- 14 minutes if you made big cookies but I like to check them at 10 and make sure they are just a little firm). If it is too sticky to work with, put the bowl in the refrigerator or freezer for a little while and it will harden.

6. When they are done, take out of oven and let rest on the cookie sheet for a minute, to set, then transfer to a rack to cool.

That's it. It makes 3 dozen small or 2 dozen large cookies. This recipe doubles (two boxes) easily. If you want to make more than two batches, it is better to split it up and only have two boxes of mix in a bowl at one time. More than that, and the dough gets worked too much and gets tough.