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. 
These look awesome!
Did it take a long time to get the ice cream to freeze?
Janna,
I let it set in the ice cream about 30 minutes between each step. I wasn’t in a big hurry and 30 minutes was perfect.
I love the last photo, the way the ice cream has so perfectly filled the liner and the way the frosting swirls on top. And that frosting sounds fabulous! I am going to try it on my Chile Variado Cupcakes for an extra spicy combination.
This was a REAALLY good idea!
I love cookie-dough anything. 🙂
I totally do the mush thing too! In fact, for all my birthdays as I kid I would ask for cake mush, which meant my mom would take my slice of cake and ice cream and mash it up for me with a fork. The amazing thing is that while I would be full after a slice of cake and a scoop of ice cream, I can eat double that when in mush form. Yum!
That’s awesome Katie – glad I’m not the only cake mush eater out there!
This is insane! And by insane, I mean TOTALLY AWESOME! COME ON!!!! I am SO making these!
What an awesome idea! How do you store them – does the cake part get too cold if you freeze them?
Hillary
Chew on That
These are so incredible – Love them!!!
Hillary – I kept them in the freezer. It did make the cake part cold, but I’m personally a fan of cold/frozen cake anyways.