A Cookie Contest Emergency

So, I know my last post was about food and this one is going to be a post about food too. Some people eat to live and some people live to eat. I live to eat. (And thank heavens I am a self proclaimed distance runner too or else who knows what I would look like!) But this one is more interesting. I promise.

Jacob has a drawing for an iPad at work this week and you have to earn the tickets for the drawing. Today they had a cookie making contest. If you brought in cookies you got a few tickets and if you won, you got more tickets for drawing, plus some kind of gift card.

Jacob forgot to make cookies. He called me a little after four and asked me to bring him winning cookies by five. Okay, he didn't say winning, but I know he wants that iPad. I said I would bring him what ever I could find, probably chocolate chip cookies. But I just didn't feel like doing that. I just opened my cupboards and let inspiration take the lead.

We had a Betty Crocker Cake mix so I thought CAKEYS! (Cake cookies. I am not sure how to spell it but Cakie looks wrong to me so I am sticking with my way.)

I knew just a cakey wasn't going to cut it so I decided to make frosting while the cakeys were in the oven. I opened the lazy susan for some frosting inspiration and found lemon extract so lemon frosting it was. Then I found my old decorating kit and piped one huge drop flower on all the cookies.

The cakey was satisfactory, but definitely NOT a winner... So I dropped them off, glad that I had made Jacob feel better about forgetting to make cookies.

AND WE WERE 2nd PLACE!

Can you believe my silly cakey made second place? No gift certificate, but I will take second place out of 14 people. Jacob said the cakeys received lots of compliments though. He also said the winner made some kind of chocolate meringue. Well maybe... this is how he described it in his text. "They were made with chocolate and egg whites. They looked funny but they were super moist on the inside." Does that sound like a chocolate meringue type thing to any one else? Maybe not the part about being super moist inside.

So, for the next time you realize at the last minute that you said you'd make a treat for your next ward activity, or you need a quick dessert any occasion I left the recipe below.

I think the trick here is to make them as fast as you can.

On your mark. Get set. Go.

I'm pretty sure everyone can make a cakey, but here is what I did.

1 box Betty Crocker white cake mix.
1 egg
1/2 c. vegetable oil

Mix it up. It might seem a little on the dry side but that is okay. The dough didn't look smooth when I used beaters so I switch to a spoon. Make cookie dough balls as big as you'd like. Put them in the oven at 350 for 9 minutes. Around 7 minutes the cakeys still looked like balls so I opened the oven door and patted them down with a spatula. A little more liquid in the mix probably would have helped, but whatever works, right? :) At 9 minutes I turned the oven off and let them sit in there for one more minute. I don't know why I did that. Then I took them out and put the cookies on a cooling rack.

Frosting:
1 tsp. lemon extract or grated lemon rind.
cream that in with 1 1/2 T. room temp. butter.
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
2 T. lemon juice mixed with 1 T. water

Add 1/2 a cup of the powered sugar to the butter and beat it until its all mixed in. It will be very very dry.
Add a teaspoon of the lemon-water mixture and beat it in.
Keep adding the powdered sugar and the lemon- water mixture one at a time until you get the consistency you want to frost your cookies.
I didn't use anywhere close to the amount of lemon-water mixture I mixed together, so scale it down if you want to. And if you want it extra lemony add more grated lemon!

Sorry that there is no picture. But I had to be out the door.

I also have had cakeys with a strawberry cake mix and vanilla frosting that were really good So use what you have and remember the trick is to do it as fast as you can and not think too much. In fact, don't measure anything.

Best of luck in your next cookie emergency!