German Chocolate Cake Cookies

For this week's baking adventure I had a specific task at hand. My best friend's dad (sort of my 2nd dad) has his 50th birthday this week and I was put in charge of bringing a celebration dessert. Normally, we make him and his family German sweet chocolate cake or our Hejma chocolate chip cookies. For example, for their 25th wedding anniversary, we made them this:

Yes, that's right. It's a German sweet chocolate wedding cake. It was awesome. Anyways, back to the task at hand.

I didn't want to make him the usual two options, so how about combine them! Voila, we have German chocolate cake cookies! After scouring the Internet for a recipe I found a few that I kind of melded together. However, and please don't be mad, but the recipes I found use...(gasp)...boxed cake mix!

I know it might be considered "cheating," but it really does the trick. You add so many other special ingredients to the batter that the fact that you are using boxed cake mix doesn't really show. One of those special ingredients is toasted pecans. I loved toasted nuts. The way they perfume your whole kitchen with that nutty, delicious aroma reminds me of a cool fall day. Plus on told of that you add more chocolate, and who doesn't like that?!

Rolling these puppies was very hard. The batter is very gooey and I found it worked best to use a spoon and make a small round ball and then just drop it in the coconut and roll it around. That way I couldn't handle the batter at the very least and get the job done. That way I could limit the amount of sticky batter and coconut that stuck to my hand and then proceeded to get all over my kitchen on whatever I touched. Good thing I needed to clean anyways.

All ready for the oven!

It was really hard to tell when these cookies were done. The coconut was getting nice and toasty, but the cookies were very soft. After 10 minutes, I just took them out and they seemed to be okay. They are supposed to have a cakey texture, so don't worry if they feel really soft.

Almost as pretty as the cake. Almost.

These cookies are good...I don't want to say over the top amazing, but I would say if you can't choose between cake or cookies, these are a perfect combo. You get the size and convenience of a cookie with the flavors and moistness of a cake.

German Chocolate Cake Cookies

(adapted from The Hungry Housewife, The Suburbanatrix, and Life So Sweet)

Ingredients

1 box German chocolate cake mix

4 Tbsp. butter, softened

1 egg

1/2 cup applesauce

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup sweetened coconut

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Combine all ingredients except coconut until thoroughly combined and the pecans and chocolate chips are evenly distributed.

3. Chill batter in fridge until solid enough to handle. (I put mine in the fridge for about 30 min)

4. Roll into ping-pong ball size balls and roll in coconut. Place cookies on cookie sheet spread about 2 inch apart.

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes until centers are cooked but still soft.