Thanksgiving Baking

As I mentioned before, I did a little baking for Thanksgiving at the Bakers'! It was hard for me to decide what to bake, but ended up going with two of our favorites: pumpkin cheesecake & Nutella gooey cookies! As always, they did not disappoint!

Here are the recipes for your holiday baking...

Nutella Gooey Cookies (from one of my FAVORITE blogs, www.plainchicken.com)



1 box chocolate cake mix
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup Nutella (add more if you like)
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add the egg. Then beat in the Nutella and vanilla extract. Mix in the cake mix. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to firm up so that you can roll the batter into balls. Roll the chilled batter into tablespoon sized balls (I used a medium cookie scoop) and then roll them in powdered sugar. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. Bake 12-14 minutes. The cookies will remain soft and gooey.


Pumpkin Cheesecake (from another favorite, www.kraftfoods.com)



1 8 oz. pkg Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided
1 Graham Pie Crust (6 oz.)


BEAT cream cheese, pumpkin, sugar and pumpkin pie spice with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Gently stir in 2-1/2 cups of the whipped topping. Cover and refrigerate remaining whipped topping for later use.

SPOON cream cheese mixture into crust.

REFRIGERATE 3 hours or overnight. Serve topped with remaining whipped topping. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.