Pink Lemonade Gooey Butter Cookies

Put the butter into a large mixing bowl. Cream the butter until soft and creamy. Add the cream cheese and beat until mixture is smooth. Beat in the egg, lemon extract and lemon zest until combined. Add the cake mix and beat just until well mixed.

If the dough is too soft to roll into balls, cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for 1-2 hours or until it’s easy to handle.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Place some granulated sugar and confectioners’ sugar into separate bowls.

Roll the dough into 1-inch to 1 1/4-inch balls.

Drop each dough ball into the bowl of granulated sugar and roll it in the sugar to coat completely.

Immediately drop the sugared dough ball into the confectioners’ sugar and roll it to coat heavily with the sugar. Rolling the dough balls in the granulated sugar first helps the confectioners’ sugar coating not sink into the baked cookies.

Place the dough balls 2″ apart on ungreased cookie sheets; flatten slightly. Bake at 350 F for 10-12 minutes. DO NOT overbake. Take the cookies out of the oven when they look a little underdone.

Let the cookies cool on the pan for 1-2 minutes, then remove them from the pans to wire racks and cool completely.

Store the cookies in an airtight container. Makes about 2 1/2-3 dozen.

Adapted from a recipe I found years ago in a cookie club newsletter.