M&M Cookies (with walnuts!)

by Grace

(pictures by Sophia)

     Most of us know that on the back of m&m packs, we are presented with a recipe on how to make m&m cookies. 

     Sophia and I decided to actually take this recipe suggestion. We did not, unfortunately, have enough M&M'S (due to my eating quite a few of them - although, in my own defense, that was before I knew we were going to bake cookies for the blog).  
     Because of this lack of M&M's Sophia had the idea to include walnuts. My dad is allergic to walnuts, so we had to split the batch and put less m&m's in the batch with walnuts. I think it turned out pretty well.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) Butter
• 2/3 cup Brown Sugur
• 2/3 cup Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 2 cups Flour
• 1 1/4 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 1 3/4 cups M&M'S Brand Milk Chocolate Candies (or dark)
• Approx., optional 1 cup of Walnuts

*Words in red are not from original ingredient list. 

Instructions:

It's always good to have two bowls when baking: one for the dry ingredients and one for the wet. I don't know why. That's what my grandma said. 
Text in quotations are taken directly from the back of the m&m bag. 

1. "Preheat oven to 350 degrees." Well...later in the recipe, we are told to let the dough chill for either one hour or overnight. So it's going to be one of those times where you should just use your judgement on when start preheating.  
2. "In a large bowl, cream butter and both sugars are until well blended. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix to combine." We had to put the butter into our microwave for 20 seconds to make it soft enough to cream. After that, we cut them into large dices. 



Slice the butter to make it easier to cream. Easier=better in this case.




3. "In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together. Slowly add these ingredients into the butter mixture and stir until combined."



Sifting is too mainstream for us...at least until we find our sifter. "Slowly add these ingredients" were instructions also ignored, but only by accident.


4. "Fold in the M&M'S Brand Milk Chocolate Candies [or dark chocolate, if preferred]..." For those of you including walnuts - include them now! Chopped is better. You decide the size of the pieces. If you have to split the batch like we had to, go ahead and do it now; split the batch in half or however you want to split it, and fold in your M&Ms in both batches, and only mix in the walnuts with one. We used about 1/2 cup of walnuts or more for half the batch.



Grace with a knife...proof that we don't actually know what we're doing.









5. "...and chill the dough for 1 hour, or overnight."Initially, this is where we realized that we had forgotten to preheat the oven - and we were glad of it. You can put the cookie dough in cellophane.
6. Now we wait. Alas! We have cookies on our mind, but we must wait. Sophia and I played improv games while waiting. We may not be chefs (or even actresses), but we know how to have fun. 
7. "Drop dough by rounded tablespoons tablespoons onto a lightly greased tray, about 2 inches apart."
8. "Bake for 8-10 minutes for chewy cookies, or 12-14 minutes for cripsy cookies. Enjoy!" We have an old oven that doesn't seem to take normal oven-time suggestions very well: for us, it was 8 minutes and the bottom rack of cookies were crispy and very slightly burned. But that's the way we like it anyway.
9. Allow to cool for a bit. We like warm, freshly-baked cookies, though. 
10. NOW EAT!!! *OM-NOM-NOM-NOM*

"Yes, I'll have all of them, thanks."
Bon appetit!

Thank you for baking with us! Coming soon: "Melt-in-your-mouth muffins!"

Pi is an irrational number - Star Trek

In celebration of Pi Day, here is a Star Trek reference of the eternal, irrational, mind blowing number.

We are just so entertained by you, Spock.

COMING UP SOON - Baking with the Moore Sisters:

• m&m cookies
• "melt-in-your-mouth" muffins