Pumpkin-Carrot Cookies

If you've spent any time on Pinterest, chances are you've seen this pin before:

The premise: mix a can of pumpkin and a box of cake mix and voila - easy pumpkin cake or muffins that are Weight Watcher friendly because they don't use extra oil or eggs so it keeps the calorie and fat count down.  I've made this recipe a number of times because it's just so easy and the results are satisfying, but friendly to those of us who are eating healthy.  My personal favorite is to mix the pumpkin with spice cake mix, but I've also done it with yellow cake mix.  I've made it into a cake with an apple cider glaze, I've made it into muffins, and I've made it into cookies.  

Yesterday at the grocery store, both pumpkin and carrot cake mix were on sale for cheap, so I knew I'd be making something along the pumpkin+cake mix lines.  I was also slightly hungry for something called "health food cake."  It's not really health food, but rather a concoction very similar to carrot cake but it has applesauce, raisins and nuts in it.  And then it's slathered in cream cheese frosting.  But I'm guessing that the fine ladies who started crafting these cakes for pot-lucks were like "Applesauce?  Healthy.  Raisins?  Healthy?  Nuts?  Healthy."  And it's super tasty, but all the non-healthy in the recipe sort of cancels out the healthy, you know?  

So a sale at the grocery store and a hankering for a non-healthy health food cake were the inspiration behind today's recipe:

You will need: 

* One box of carrot cake mix

* One can of canned pumpkin

* 1/2 cup raisins

* 1/2 cup walnuts (though judging from my picture, it looks like I'm adding a 1/2 cup of English.  I started quoting the movie "Witness" in my head when I noticed that. You be careful out among them English.)

(Also, you'll notice I'm not above buying generic ingredients, much to my tween's chagrin. Ugh.  Why can't you ever buy the name brand granola bars, pop-tarts, and canned pumpkin?  Wait.  Maybe he doesn't complain about the generic pumpkin.  *thinking*  Nope, he just complains because it's pumpkin.)

Mix carrot cake mix and pumpkin in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment.  Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes until everything is well combined, scraping down sides and bottom of the bowl halfway through.  

Whee!

Fold in the nuts and raisins by hand.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet lined with parchment (or sprayed with cooking spray - that's fine too).  Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until cookies are set and just browning around the edges.  Allow to cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes, then remove to wire rack.

You'll end up with moist, cake-like cookies that are about 175 calories for 2 cookies.  I made 32 large-ish cookies though (very generous teaspoonfuls).  You could easily make these cookies smaller to increase your yield and drop the per-cookie calorie count.  You could also use this same mix to make muffins (divide into papered muffin tins) or a snack cake (spread into 9x13 pan coated with cooking spray).  Adjust cooking times accordingly.

The verdict: They're not terrible by any means.  They're satisfying.  They satisfy the cake craving I've had going on for the last few days.  But they'd really benefit from a dollop of cream cheese frosting on top, darnit.

Edited to add: I'd forgotten that these are the type of cookies/baked good that taste even better the second day.  Today I'm not even missing the fact that they don't have cream cheese frosting.