M&M Cookies to Celebrate Valentine's Day

Friday, February 12, 2010

M&M Cookies to Celebrate Valentine’s Day

Hubby and I don’t usually celebrate Valentine’s Day. I’m not sure how that happened, but we’re both ok with it. We usually just have a nice dinner at home and some wine. No gifts, no fancy restaurants, just chillin. Even though we don’t get all romantic and mushy on Valentine’s day, I do love to bake for this holiday.

You see, my three favorite colors are red, pink, and purple. I love them all almost equally, but if I had to rank them, it’d be red first, then purple, then pink. Not pastel pink, a good hearty dark-hot-pink – like the dark pink M&Ms in the Valentine’s Day color combo. One of the reasons I love baking for Valentine’s day is that I’ll most likely be making something with one of my favorite colors. Last year I made red velvet cupcakes that I took to work. This year, I happened to grab a bag of Valentine’s Day M&Ms while I was at the store the other day.

I have a soft spot for holiday colored M&Ms. Not sure why, but I just love them. So I set out to make some M&M cookies. Now I’ve already made two versions – regular M&M cookies and chocolate M&M cookies. Both were great, but I always prefer to try new recipes.

I whipped up this batch of cookies last weekend, but didn’t want to have cookies in the house, so I baked up a dozen and froze the rest. The dozen that I baked went with me to a food photography seminar – which I still need to blog about (check out Elina’s or Kerstin’s recap).

To freeze the cookies, I just rolled them out as if I was going to bake them. Then I put them on a cake pan lined with waxed paper and threw them into the freezer. Once they were frozen, I put them all into a ziplock bag. These frozen cookies are going to some friends who just had a baby. That way the new parents can bake a couple cookies at a time for some instant comfort.

M&M Cookies

Yield: ~3 dozen

Ingredients:

1 c brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
1 c shortening
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 c M&Ms

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix sugar, eggs, shortening, and vanilla thoroughly. Add flour, salt, and baking soda to creamed mixture. Blend well. Add 3/4 cup of M&M candies.

Portion out some dough using a cookie scoop. Using your hands, roll into a small ball and place on cookie sheet. Slightly push a few candies on top of each dough ball with remaining candies.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes. (13-15 if taking straight out of the freezer).

Recipe from Allrecipes.com

Cookies, Dessert

17 comments »

11 Responses to “Pumpkin White Chocolate Chip Bars”

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1

stephchows — October 27, 2009 at 2:26 pm

mmm they look so super moist!
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2

Cupcake Activist — October 27, 2009 at 4:11 pm

Yum! Those look really good! I’ve never tried white chocolate with pumpkin.
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3

nutmegnanny — October 28, 2009 at 1:41 am

Wow white chocolate and pumpkin! What a delicious combination…yum!
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4

Erin — October 28, 2009 at 2:02 am

I made those last year, and MAN OH MAN aren’t they good!
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5

Sweet and Savory — October 28, 2009 at 4:01 am

I have in the oven, a chocolate-pumpkin streusel brownie. Now, I want to make this too.

You have great recipes. Thanks.
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6

The Novice Chef — October 28, 2009 at 4:03 am

These look delicious! And I totally do not blame you for having a couple before taking them to give away!
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bridget {bake at 350} — October 31, 2009 at 12:44 pm

I love that you ate 2 while you were cutting them! 🙂 That sounds familiar!

They look wonderful!
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Tessa — October 31, 2009 at 5:33 pm

These are the same bars I made, but I added cinnamon chips per recommendation from Maria at Two Peas in their Pod. They were great! Glad to see they turned out well for you too!
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Ingrid — November 2, 2009 at 7:05 pm

I totally agree I’m not crazy about chocolate and pumpking together. Another great flavor with pumpkin (in my opinion) is gingerbread.

I’m definitely adding this to my list of pumpkin recipes that will be baked from here until the kiddos say no more! 🙂
~ingrid
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10

Jade — November 3, 2009 at 10:13 pm

I love making bars. These look amazing. I will definety try these soon!
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Jessica — October 29, 2010 at 1:21 pm

I made these last night to take tailgating at a college football game tonight and they are SO yummy! I used semisweet chips instead of white chocolate, but I bet they’d be good either way! I’m Really glad you warned that the mixture might look like it curdled after adding in the pumpkin, because I think it would have freaked me out and I would have thought I did something wrong!