Confetti Blizzard Whippersnapper Cookies

Coconut Layer Cake Murder

## Ingredients

* 1 cup white chocolate or vanilla baking chips ***(I used Nestlé)***
* 1 cup ***(8 ounces)*** sweetened coconut flakes ***(pack it down in the cup when you measure it)***
* 1 box Pillsbury Funfetti cake mix ***(the kind that makes a 9-inch by 13-inch cake)***
* 2 cups of original Cool Whip ***(not low-fat Cool Whip)***
* 1 large egg, beaten ***(just whip it up in a glass with a fork)***
* ½ cup powdered ***(confectioners')*** sugar ***(for rolling the cookies—there's no need to sift unless it's got lumps)***
* 15 maraschino cherries cut in half lengthwise ***(you can also use candied cherries, either red or green or a combination of both)***

## Directions

* Preheat oven to 350°F, rack in the middle position.
* 30 minutes before you're ready to bake, stick a teaspoon from your silverware drawer in a large freezer-safe mixing bowl. Place the bowl with the spoon in the freezer to chill.
* Measure out one cup of white chocolate or vanilla baking chips.
* If you have a food processor, attach the steel blade. If you don't, you'll have to do your chopping with a knife.
* Put the white chocolate or vanilla chips in the bottom of the food processor bowl.
* Measure the sweetened coconut flakes. make sure to press them down in the cup to fill it to the top.
* Put the sweetened coconut flakes on top of the white chocolate or vanilla chips.
* Process the chips and coconut in an on-and-off motion with the steel blade. Continue to process until they are in very small pieces.
* Either spray a cookie sheet with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray, or line it with parchment paper and then spray that.

**Hannah's 1st Note: When Andrea makes these cookies, she uses parchment paper, so all she has to do when she takes them out of the oven is pull the parchment paper over on a wire cooling rack.**

* Remove the large mixing bowl from the freezer and add approximately half of the Funfetti cake mix from the box.
* In a separate bowl, measure out 2 cups of original Cool Whip.
* Add the beaten egg to the Cool Whip. Using a rubber spatula, fold the egg into the Cool Whip. Be careful not to stir too much. Keep as much air in this mixture as possible.
* Return to the large mixing bowl, the one that you chilled and now holds half of the Funfetti cake mix.
* Add the chopped white chocolate or vanilla chips and the chopped sweetened coconut flakes to the large bowl with the cake mix. Mix them in thoroughly.
* Add the contents of the smaller bowl to the large bowl. Using the rubber spatula gain, fold in the Cool Whip and egg mixture. Try to do this gently to keep the air in the mixture.
* Sprinkle on the rest of the Funfetti cake mix on top, and fold it in gently with the rubber spatula. Continue to fold until everything is well mixed.
* Open the packet with the multi-colored candy sprinkles and scatter them over the top of the mixture in the large bowl. Again, using the rubber spatula, fold them in.
* Continue to fold until the multi-colored sprinkles begin to leave streaks of color in the cookie dough.
* Place the half-cup of powdered sugar in a shallow bowl. Dust your impeccably clean hands with powdered sugar.
* There are two ways to form dough balls with this sticky cookie dough. One is to scoop out dough with your chilled spoon and place it in the bowl of powdered sugar, rolling it around with your fingers until it forms a small ball. The other, easier way is to dust your hands with powdered sugar, pinch off a small amount of dough, place it in the bowl of powdered sugar, and shape it into a ball with your fingers.
* Use your favorite method ***(you may want to try both to see which one works best for you)*** to form 12 dough balls for each cookie sheet.
* If you don't have double ovens, place the remaining cookie dough in the refrigerator to wait until you have room to bake a second sheet of cookies. If you forget to do this and leave the bowl with the dough on the counter, it will be even stickier and more difficult to form into dough balls!
* Place one-half of the maraschino cherry, cut down down, on top of each cookie ball on the sheet. Flatten the balls just a bit by pressing down on the cherry halves.
* Bake your Confetti Blizzard Whippersnapper Cookies at 350°F for 15 minutes.
* Remove your cookies from the oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on a cold stovetop burner or a wire rack.
* When 2 minutes have passed, remove the cookies from the sheet with a metal spatula and place them on a wire rack to complete cooling. If you used the parchment paper, this is simple. Simply pull the paper off of the cookie sheet and onto the wire rack. The cookies can stay on the paper until they're cool.

**Hannah's 2nd Note: Confetti Blizzard Whippersnapper Cookies are very pretty. Lisa and I are going to make them for Christmas parties using both red and green cherries on top.**

**Andrea's 1st Note: Bill always wants me to make these cookies so that he can take them to the sheriff's station. And now that Tracey's in school, she asks for these cookies every time there's a holiday and mothers bring refreshments for class parties.**

Yield: 2 to 3 dozen very pretty tasty cookies.

**Andrea's 2nd Note: Tracey wants these cookies for her birthday party. She made me promise not to serve them to anyone expect family until then.**