Easter Bunny Whippersnapper Cookies

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder

DO NOT preheat the oven yet. This dough needs to chill before baking.

## Ingredients

* 1 cup pecans ***(buy the bits and pieces of pecans—they’re cheaper than pecan halves)***
* 1 box ***(approximately 18 ounces)*** carrot cake mix, the kind that makes a 9-inch by 13-inch cake ***(I used Betty Crocker)***
* 1/2 cup milk
* 1/4 cup carrot juice ***(substitute orange juice or pineapple juice if you can’t find it)***
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 large egg, beaten ***(just whip it up in a glass with a fork)***
* 2 cups Original Cool Whip, thawed ***(measure this—a tub of Cool Whip contains a little over 3 cups and that’s too much!)***
* 1/2 cup powdered ***(confectioners’)*** sugar ***(you don’t have to sift it unless it’s old and has big lumps)***
* Jelly beans to decorate the top of the cookies, 3 jelly beans for each cookie

## Directions

* Use a food processor with the steel blade to chop the pecans into small pieces.
* Transfer the contents of the food processor to a small bowl. You will add the nuts to the batter after everything else is mixed.
* Pour HALF of the dry carrot cake mix into a large mixing bowl.

* Add the milk and mix it in with a rubber spatula.
* Add the carrot juice or substitute and mix that in.
* Add the vanilla extract and mix that in.

* Whip up the egg in a glass with a fork until it is frothy and well mixed.
* Add the contents of the glass to the mixing bowl and mix until everything is well combined.
* Measure the Cool Whip and add it to the mixing bowl.

* Stir gently with a rubber spatula until everything is well combined. Be very careful not to stir too vigorously. You don’t want to stir all the air out of the Cool Whip.
* Sprinkle in the rest of the cake mix and gently fold everything together with the rubber spatula. Again, keep as much air in the batter as possible. Air is what will make your cookies soft and give them a melt-in-your-mouth quality.
* Gently and carefully mix in the chopped pecans. Make sure you don’t mix too vigorously.

* Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and chill the cookie dough for at least one hour in the refrigerator. It’s a little too sticky to form into balls without chilling it first.
* When your cookie dough has chilled and you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F., and make sure the rack is in the middle position. DO NOT take your chilled cookie dough out of the refrigerator until after your oven has reached the proper temperature.
* While your oven is preheating, prepare your cookie sheets by spraying them with Pam or another nonstick baking spray, or lining them with parchment paper.

* Place the powdered sugar in a small, shallow bowl. You will be dropping cookie dough into this bowl to form dough balls and coating the balls with the powdered sugar.
* When your oven is ready, take your dough out of the refrigerator.
* Using a teaspoon from your silverware drawer, drop the dough by rounded teaspoonful into the bowl with the powdered sugar. Roll the dough around with your fingers to form powdered sugar–coated cookie dough balls.

**Hannah’s 1st Note:** Work with only one cookie dough ball at a time. If you drop more than one in the bowl of powdered sugar, they’ll stick together. Also, make only as many cookie dough balls as you can bake at one time. Cover the remaining dough and return it to the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake more.

**Hannah’s 2nd Note:** If you coat your fingers with powdered sugar first and then try to form the cookie dough into balls, it’s a lot easier to accomplish.

* Place the coated cookie dough balls on your prepared cookie sheets, no more than 12 cookies to a standard-size sheet.

* If you decide you want to decorate your cookies, press 3 jelly beans on top of each cookie **before** you bake them.

* Bake your Easter Bunny Whippersnapper Cookies at 350 degrees F., for 10 minutes. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, and then move them to a wire rack to cool completely. ***(This is a lot easier if you line your cookie sheets with parchment paper—then you don’t need to lift the cookies one by one. All you have to do is grab one end of the parchment paper and pull it, cookies and all, onto the wire rack.)***

* Once the cookies are completely cool, store them between sheets of waxed paper in a cool, dry place. ***(Your refrigerator is cool, but it’s definitely not dry!)***

**Yield:** 3 to 4 dozen soft, delicious cookies that everyone, especially the kids, will love to eat.