Pink Velvet Cookies

We had a ward baby shower for a baby girl, and the them was "If you give a mouse a cookie." It was adorable! I planned to bring pink velvet cookies- deliciously moist, light pink cookies with sweetened cream cheese swirled throughout. What I actually brought were slightly dry, dark red cake cookies with tart cream cheese....altogether not my best attempt. However, they did grow on me in the three days before they were gone completely. I was disappointed that I didn't gorgeous "baby girl" cookies, but they were pretty good, and I know I could do even better next time!

Here's the problem. Pink velvet...it doesn't exist. Red velvet is a chocolate cake, which means pink never stood a chance. I did some research once I realized I couldn't have velvet and pink, and I found that what anyone calls "pink velvet" is any variety of vanilla, very light chocolate, strawberry, etc. etc. cake. If it's pink, you can apparently just add the word 'velvet' and you're set!

These are totally pink! ...right? :)

My original idea stemmed from these cookies from Taste and Tell, which look like moistest cookies ever. But they call for a red velvet cake mix, which meant going to the store...which meant no. I also loved the cream cheese swirled in the batter in these cookies from Amybites. But these didn't have any buttermilk or vinegar, which is the definition of red velvet to me! So I ended up with these red velvet crinkle cookies from Not a Chef, but I can Cook.

The recipe I followed- with cream cheese in the middle.

I added pink food coloring instead of red, but it definitely looks red anyway. They're certainly not as red as if you use the full bottle or whatever it calls for, but I thought it was plenty fine. I made the first two cookies exactly like the recipe, with a dollop of cream cheese right in the middle. I tasted one after it baked, and all I got was a large amount of red cookie, followed by a large bite of bitter cream cheese, followed by more dry cookie. So I improvised and swirled the cream cheese into the batter like the other recipe I wanted to make. It made them much better! Little bits of cream cheese taste way better than one large dollop.

Swirling in the cream cheese. I really should have added more!

Like I said, these cookies definitely grew on me. However, I would still like to make them more moist next time somehow...I'll need to do some research. The only problem left is that I really really really really want to make this red velvet cake from Simply Scratch. It looks as moist as they come.

Oh. my. I need to make this!