A sweet treat for your weekend ~ 3.19.20

This is a recipe from The New Holly Clegg Trim and Terrific cookbook. She says that it's her daughter's most requested recipe and it certainly is a sweet treat!

I love how it transforms in the oven... coming out looking like this!

Seriously, if you could smell that... you would swoon and quite possibly get a sugar high from the scent alone!

So it is obviously, very sweet, with a total of 3 cups (16 oz) of powdered sugar in the top layer! But don't be discouraged. Desserts are meant to be a bit indulgent, right? And this is a fun and quick recipe to make with simple ingredients that you probably have on hand in the fridge and pantry. And it's rather low in fat- depending on how many squares you cut your pan into- Holly says the recipe yields 48 squares. Those are rather tiny little treats, but oftentimes, it's all you need, right?

Enough rambling, here's the recipe!

Ooey Gooey Squares

1 box of yellow cake mix

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 egg

1 Tbs water

1 pkg reduced fat cream cheese

16 oz (3 cups) powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 large egg whites

1 cup chocolate chips (or try a combo- butterscotch + chocolate chip- mmm....)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare a 9x13 inch pan by spraying it with non-stick spray.

Mix together the cake mix, melted butter, egg, and water until combined. Dump into your prepared pan and pat into the bottom until evenly distributed.

Swipe out your mixing bowl and put the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, egg whites in there. Mix until smooth and creamy. Stir in most of the chocolate chips. Pour mixture on top of your first layer. Scatter remaining chocolate chips on top and pop the pan into the oven for 40-50 minutes. You'll know it's done when it's nicely browned all over and the edges pull away from the sides. Let cool. For best results, cut with a plastic knife- it's a little kitchen trick that plastic knives cut brownies and these gooey squares the best!