Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies and Smart Cookies Cookbook-create adorable Puppy Cookies!

When it comes to baking with the kids, I like to keep it easy. It’s about the time spent together creating, not about the ingredients. Teaching them the basic skills while still having a good time. I also know my kids have an attention span of about 10 minutes. Doesn’t matter what the age. I need to make the most of those minutes.

We had the privilege of dog sitting for my sister this summer, for 2 months. She was off in Cambodia teaching. It was cheaper for her to bring her dog, Sadie, here to Georgia than to try and board her in Texas. I wasn’t sure how our dog, Max, would do with another dog in the house but I knew we’d work it out.

Max loved having a playmate and Sadie tolerated Max and all his energy. Sadie ruled our house and Max was good with it. I think Max went into withdraw when Sadie went home a few weeks ago.

It was perfect timing that we received our copy of Christie’s new book Smart Cookie. Christie is the creative genius behind Love From The Oven.

We have the same philosophy about baking and kids. Keep it easy, keep it fun. Her entire book is about the decorating aspect of cookies.

Start with a store bought cookie (or make your own) and then go to town decorating it. She covers every occasion, holidays, seasonal, birthdays, baby and bridal showers. Just flipping through the book, you’ll want to plan paerties for every cookie in there!

In honor of Sadie, Grace and I decided to make the Puppy Cookies. We made our own giant Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies and then just put them together. I have to say, we love the Edible Markers. We’ve never drawn on cookies (or any other food) before but I see a lot of cute messages being written in the future. Just picture the nilla wafers in a lunch bag with “I love you”, “I’m proud of you”, “You’re awesome” as a surprise treat.

In less than 10 minutes, our puppies were happily sitting on a plate waiting for the other kids to get home.

Just look at those puppy dog eyes!

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Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies

Ingredients

1 box Chocolate Cake mix
2 eggs
6 tablespoons melted butter

additional supplies for Puppy Cookies

1/4 chocolate candy melts or chocolate almond bark
12 Nutter Butter Cookies
12 Mini Nilla Wafers
24 Candy Eyeballs (2 per cookie)
12 red sixlets or m&ms
Edible marker

Instructions

Using a hand mixer or a wooden spoon, combine all ingredients in a large bowl making sure all the cake mix is blended in well.
Spoon batter, using a Large Cookie Scoop on a parchment lined cookie sheet, at least 3 inches apart.
Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 10-11 minutes. Remove form oven and let rest on baking tray for 5 minutes before removing to cooling racks to cool completely.

to make Puppy Cookies

Melt chocolate according to package instructions.
Using the edible marker, draw the mouth on each of the nilla wafers.
Separate the outer cookies of the 12 Nutter Butters, remove filling if desired.
Construct your Puppies. Using the melted chocolate as glue, Place the Nilla wafers first, centered on the lower half of the chocolate cookie. Next place the Nutter Butter cookies as ears, place your eyes where they belong and then add your sixlet or m&m as a nose.