Chewy M&M Sugar Cookies

A lot has been going on in the past few weeks.  My husband and I both had family visiting and staying with our sisters.  I had intended making some tasty treats for the barbeques that were planned during their visit but I didn’t have the time to make the more time consuming treats that would have wowed them.  Instead, for the first barbeque, I made Slutty Brownies and these Chewy M&M Sugar Cookies that looked so good on Tracey’s Culinary Adventures blog.  I’d recently seen a couple of other bloggers that loved this recipe too, so kudos to Tracey.

As it happened, my husband called me out to look as something he was working on outside (I don’t remember what it was) while I was making these, so one batch cooked too long and became crispy.  That didn’t cause a problem because my husband and his brothers loved the crispy ones too.

Enjoy.

Hot out of the oven.

Ready to eat…bet you want a bite.

Yield:  24 cookies                 Cook Time:  11 – 13 minutes

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar, plus 1/3 cup for rolling
2 oz room temperature cream cheese, cut into 8 pieces (I used Neufchatel cream cheese)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and still warm
1/3 cup vegetable (or canola) oil (I used olive oil – I know you shouldn’t use olive oil for baking but that’s all I have in the house)
1 large egg, room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 – 1 1/4 cups M&M’s (I used 1 cup for the dough and 1/4 cup to add on top)

Directions:

Step 1: Mix the first four ingredients in one bowl.

Step 2:  Place 1 1/2 cups of sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl.  Mix the warm butter with the cream cheese mixture.  The mixture may still have some lumps now.  Mix in the oil.  Mix in the egg, milk and vanilla extract until smooth.  Using a spatula, begin folding the flour mixture into the cream cheese mixture.  Mix in 1 cup of the M&M’s before the flour mixture is fully incorporated.  Once the flour mixture is fully incorporated, you should have a soft dough.  Be sure not to over-mix.

Step 3:  Add 1/3 cup sugar in a small soup bowl for rolling.  Using a heaping tablespoon for each cookie, roll the dough into a ball and then roll in the sugar reserved earlier until all the dough is used.  Since my cookies were a little flat the first time I made them, I chilled the dough balls in a medium bowl for a couple of hours after shaping and rolling in sugar.

Step 4:  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place 12 cookies evenly apart on the sheet.  Flatten the dough balls slightly until they are about two inches wide.  Add a few M&M’s into the top of each cookie.  Repeat until all the dough balls are used.

Step 5:  Bake each tray individually in a preheated oven at 350 F for 11-13 minutes.  The cookie edges should be set and the tops should be puffy and crackly.  Cool for 5 minutes and then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely..

Cookie recipe from Tracey’s Culinary Adventures.