Bad Day Baking: Lazy New Years Day

It's very rare that I have a full on great day. The kind where I'm in a good mood, have all kinds of energy, and am motivated to try new things...but the last 24 hours have been some of the best I've had in a long time. I went out on a limb and tried something new for New Years Eve and I think the high from that carried over into today :)

After deep cleaning the kitchen (is there anything those silly Magic Eraser things can't clean?), pulling everything out of my cabinets to re-organize them, catching up with a good friend, AND doing an hour of Combat, I still had enough energy left to make cookies! I've been putting this off for about 2 weeks now, but I had all kinds of Christmas-y cookie decoration stuff left and it needed to get used up. So I pulled out the crushed candy canes, mini m&ms, and colored chocolate chips and got to work on some yummy pudding cookies!

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 package (3.4 oz) pudding mix

2 eggs

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1-2 cups add-ins

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Cream butter and sugars, 1-2 minutes, or until light and fluffy.

3. Beat in vanilla and pudding mix, then both eggs. (I used vanilla pudding for the chocolate chip cookies and white chocolate pudding for the candy cane cookies.)

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda.

5. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three section, mixing after each addition until just combined.

6. Stir in 1-2 cups of add-ins. (I used chocolate chips and mini baking m&ms for the first set of cookies and crushed candy canes for the second set.)

7. Drop inch thick balls of dough onto baking sheets, about 2 inches apart.

8. Bake 8-10 minutes.

9. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.