Peanut M&M cookies

I’ve been tinkering with a peanut M&M’s® cookie recipe for some time. I’d been trying to make a peanut butter cookie dough as the most obvious accompaniment but finally resolved that the flavour of the M&M’s® was getting lost. I tried a simple chocolate cookie dough recipe today and it worked so much better.  I’ve been quite restrained in terms of the M&M’s® to cookie dough ratio and you can go as crazy or as civilised as you like. I found this amount of M&M’s® per cookie was just spot on.

Ingredients

• 2¾ ounces / 75g unsalted butter, softened
• 2¾ ounces / 75g coconut oil
• 5¼ ounces / 150g light brown sugar
• 2¾ ounces / 75g caster sugar
• 5¼ ounces / 150g plain flour
• 2¾ ounces / 75g bread flour
• ½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• ½ teaspoon of baking soda
• 4 tablespoons of cocoa
• pinch of salt
• 1 large egg and 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 2 large bags peanut M&M’s®

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C (150°C fan) 338°F (302°F fan) and line 3 baking sheets with baking parchment.

In a freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, coconut oil and sugars until smooth.

Sift the flours, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cocoa and salt into a large bowl.

In a jug beat the eggs with the vanilla before adding to the butter/sugar and mix until well combined.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir with a large wooden spoon until combined.

Make large 1/8th cup sized mounds of dough and divide between the baking sheets, leaving plenty of space between each to allow for spreading.  I get a yield of 18 cookies.

Press your M&M’s® into each mound of cookie dough.  They’ll look a little crowded right now but as the cookie spreads the M&M’s® will travel with them and spread out evenly as if by magic!

Bake for 10-12 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Trivia

M&M’s® are manufactured by Mars Incorporated. They were first produced in the USA in 1941 but are now sold in over a hundred countries. The candy coating was a solution to helping US soldiers to carry chocolate without it melting, as reflected by the company’s longest-lasting advertisement slogan: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.”