This past Sunday was the Super Bowl, and as we do every year we celebrated by cooking up some delicious and meat-free game day fare. This week we’ll share what we made, and we’re going to start with dessert first! Because the Super Bowl happened to be the day before Valentine’s Day, we decided to combine the two holidays into these festive cookies. We adapted them from a recipe in the New York Times, and we were happy that they were super easy to make because it freed us up to put our efforts towards making some of the other foods for the big game. These cookies would really be perfect for any time of the year – you could make them with pastel M&Ms on Easter, for example, or with red and green ones at Christmas – so keep these in your back pocket as a simple and tasty cookie for any occasion that warrants a little bit of sweetness.
To make these, you’ll need:
- A stick of butter
- Sugar
- Brown sugar
- An egg
- Vanilla extract
- Baking soda
- Flour
- M&Ms – we used the Cupid’s Mix for Valentine’s Day, but any milk chocolate variety will do
You’ll first want to measure out 1/2 cup of M&Ms and chop them up – but be careful, because the candy shell is hard and can cause your knife to slip.
Now onto the dough: soften your butter by sticking it in the microwave for 10 seconds, then place it in a mixing bowl and whisk it with a cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, your egg, a tablespoon of vanilla extract, and a large pinch of salt. Whisk in 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, then grab a spoon or a spatula and stir in 1 1/2 cups of flour, followed by the M&Ms.
Use a spoon to scoop up portions of cookie dough that are about 2 tablespoons each, and roll in your hands to get a round ball. Place these dough balls on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spaced out so that you get 8 cookies per sheet (you should be making 16 cookies in total). Press three whole M&Ms into the top of each portion of dough.
Bake the cookies at 350°F for 12 minutes, until just the edges are very lightly browned. Take the baking sheets out of the oven and let the cookies cool on the sheets, then when they’re fully set you can scoop the cookies off and eat them!
We loved the way these looked, and the way they tasted, and how effortless they were. The hardest part is chopping your M&Ms and getting through their candy exteriors, but after that you just mix, scoop, and bake. The result is a sweet cookie that you can customize for any time of the year, and the addition of whole M&Ms on top along with the candy pieces inside means you get a nice variety of crunch throughout each cookie. You can whip these up quickly for any holiday or event, or even for no reason at all – it’s up to you!