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
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Wow, you’re going to end up with a whole lotta bars by the end of the week 😀
Yum! Love this recipe 🙂
http://www.brisbanebaker.blogspot.com
I love when ingredients don’t sound like they would be good, but come together in an amazing way! These look lovely.
I really enjoy your blog, lots of great photos and recipes! These look so good! I love oats, chocolate, and raisins, but have never combined all three.
These bars look fantastic and full of flavor. I’m bookmarking this recipe. Thanks for sharing.
These sound wonderful! I’m not huge on raisins either but it sounds like they really work here. I’ll have to try these! 🙂
This looks really great but I don’t think I can do the raisins–maybe I would make this and then I could give it to other people instead of eating it all myself!
Who is getting to eat all these amazing creations? Those ingredients sound delicious to me so I can only imagine the combined taste!
Ha Kelly! My husband and I take the baked goods to work with us. I am also the girl who always brings a dessert to any gathering. Everyone knows that if we’re hanging out, I’ll probably have desserts in hand. I usually only have about one of whatever I make (hey, I have to taste test my food!)
I am soooo making my housemates make me these for my birthday. If they don’t, I’ll just make them this weekend!! Thanks for the wonderful recipe!
How many grams in a stick of butter?
beantownbaker — September 17th, 2013 @ 7:30 am
There is information about butter in my FAQ page. 1 stick=113g