Lavender-Lemon-White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
Cookie:
1 (18.25 oz) white cake mix
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3 medium eggs
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
1-1/4 white chocolate chips
1 tbsp dried lavender buds
Icing:
1-1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp grated lemon zest
3-5 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Cookies:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Position oven rack in the middle of the oven. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Place half of the cake mix in a large mixing bowl with shortening, eggs, zest, and lavender buds. Blend with electric mixer until smooth (about a minute to a minute and a half). Stir in remaining cake mix and white chocolate chips with a wooden spoon. Stir until all the cake mix is moistened and the mixture is thoroughly combined.
3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.
4. Bake for 10-13 minutes (I find that with our oven, if I bake it for 10 minutes and then turn the cookie sheet around and then bake for 3 more minutes they get nicely cooked). The center will still be soft, but should not be gooey. Cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes; transfer to wire racks to complete cooling.
5. Prepare the icing; drizzle over the cooled cookies.

Icing:

Place powdered sugar in a medium bowl. Mix in zest and enough juice that the icing is just thin enough to drip off the fork (blend until smooth…you don’t need to add more juice to make it smooth, just stir it really well with a fork). Put prepared icing in a small sandwich ziplock for easy icing. Snip off a corner and ice away!

*Notes:
My hubby likes these cookies because they’re soft, but can only eat so many because they’re sweet. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to down on the cookie’s sweet factor. The original recipe calls for a vanilla cake but that was way sweeter than the white. I think I’ll try and figure out exactly what’s in a white cake mix and maybe making that part from scratch will lower the sweetness level. I absolutely Adore these cookies. They’re super easy to make and impress people with…hehe.