cookies and cameras, oh my!

Between Booz, Crate, wedding planning and the holidays my winter has been very hectic! I apologize for the lack of posts on the Soup- I promise to try and do better in the future.

I decided to buy myself a Christmas present that I have been wanting for a really long time. Bordenia is now busting onto the photography scene with her new Canon EOS Rebel XS Digital SLR camera. With all the exciting events for the wedding and honeymoon coming up I thought this would be a perfect time to splurge!

After some back and forth with Buy.com my new camera finally came in the mail yesterday. Just in time for our cook bake-off at work! After glancing through the users manual and decided to take it for a spin. Here is my first ever picture with my new camera:

Look pretty tasty, huh? In case you are interested these are my own modifications to Paula Deens' Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies. Here is the recipe:

1- block of cream cheese (room temp)

1- stick of butter (room temp)

1- tsp of vanilla

1- egg

1- box of cake mix (you can use any kind, for the cookies above I used double fudge chocolate)

2- cups of mini chocolate chips

1- tub of vanilla icing

Beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Mix in the vanilla and the egg. Slowly add the cake mix (it gets VERY hard to mix so recommend you use a Kitchen aid mixer) until mixed.

Fold in the chocolate chips and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. When you are ready to bake preheat the oven to 350 and roll the batter into balls. Bake for 11 minutes. Once cooled completely, put the icing into a decorating bag (I used a Ziploc) and decorate!

These cookies are so gooey and they taste like little chocolate cake cookies. Next time I am going to use funfetti!!

Enjoy!