Lemon Cookies

You know those Pinterest fail blogs? Where people post their attempts at making some Martha-Stewart-looking creation they found on Pinterest and it's this horrible disaster? I thought I had one of those on my hands on Sunday when I was making cookies to take to Audrey's Super Bowl party... but they actually turned out really good. Just not the way they were supposed to. Which is fine.

This is one of those recipes that some people will scoff at, because it involves a pre-packaged cake mix. If you're that kind of person, just move on to the next post; this one will clearly not be for you.

And I forgot to take a photo of the finished product. Which just means I'll have to make them again sometime, darn...

Prebaking... the closest I have to a finished photo, sorry.

Lemon Cookies

Ingredients
1 box of lemon cake mix (I believe mine was Lemon Supreme)
2 eggs
2 cups Cool Whip (one 8-oz tub), thawed (mine was in the fridge for a few days, not the freezer)
about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar

Equipment
baking sheet, foil, mixing bowl, oven

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350F. Stir together your cake mix, one of the eggs, and the Cool Whip in a large bowl. Mine turned out really cake-y so I added the second egg. (The original recipe I found only used one egg.) The original recipe also said to roll tablespoonfuls of the batter in powdered sugar. Well, that wasn't happening. See below. It was a total mess. So I finally gave up and instead I put spoonfuls of batter on the greased cookie sheet and sprinkled them with powdered sugar. Bake at 350F for about 10 minutes, until the edges are golden-brown. Let them cool on the sheet for a minute or two, then carefully transfer them to a cooling rack for a few minutes. They will firm up, I promise.

Yields
I made about two dozen cookies, but I also used heaping spoonfuls. You could make more if you made them smaller.

Total time
15 minutes if you don't bother "rolling" and use my method instead: 5 minutes to make the batter, 10 minutes to bake.

Cleanup rating 3/5
There will be powdered sugar everywhere if you try the rolling method. It'll also fall through the grid of your cooling racks, so be ready to wipe up the counter. The original recipe said to use parchment paper but I find that stuff annoying so I used foil, which released the cookies pretty well and kept my baking sheet clean.

Difficulty rating 5/10
You have to actually have some knowledge about baking to judge whether you need that second egg. Stirring the batter was pretty difficult, so you have to put some muscle into it to get it where it needs to be.

Flavor rating 10/10
They're very lemony, so it's not like a "lemon" cookie that is really a sugar cookie with a hint of lemon. These are LEMON cookies. And they made me pretty popular at a party where I didn't know anyone other than the hostess, so that's a good sign, I bet.

Pictured below: The mess of trying to "roll" the batter in powdered sugar.

If you try this and have more success rolling it, send me photos! Especially of the outcome... I'd love to see them turn out "right"!