M&M Candy Cane Cookies

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!

And baking cookies for all to eat.

All the cookies. All the cheer. All. The. Time.

Lately the kids in my class have been fa-reak-ing-out over Christmas. Yesterday one of our Christmas angels brought in a picture of herself sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall and when I showed the class the picture one extra-excited Christmas lover screamed “SANTA!!!!!!!!” EXACTLY like Will Ferrell does in Elf. I literally waited for him to follow it up with “I KNOW HIM!!!!” because it was so, SO perfectly Buddy the Elf. Full of Christmas cheer and unadulterated CHRISTMAS-IS-COMING-AND-SO-IS-SANTA excitement.

I feel the same way kid, I feel the same. way.

This sparked a 20-minute discussion of all the kiddos’ interactions with SANTA!!!!!! and their Elf on the Shelf’s recent movements. One Elf was discovered in the refrigerator this morning, “…eating all our food!”

Finally, one of the munchkins told us that when he went to visit Santa this past weekend, as he was saying goodbye Santa said, “And don’t forget to leave me some cookies!!”

Four-year-olds are THE best for spreading Christmas cheer. 

Wayfair recently contacted me to see if I wanted to be a part of the Wayfair/Peapod holiday bake-off, and since I can’t really go around screaming “SANTA!!!!!” like my cutie little class full of Christmas elves, I figured I would spread my Christmas cheer by baking up some [more] super festive cookies. Wayfair sent me a couple recipes to try (as well as a snowman cross-stitch which I am diligently working on every night. Hello skills learned in Girl Scouts circa 1997) and I adapted their “Festive Drop Cookies” to make them extra festive (Christmas M&Ms) and deeeelicious (candy canes). I brought half the batch into my school and sent the other half in to work with Mike – all the cookies (and all the cheer) were ingested in under an hour.

I heard Santa would REALLY like it if you left him these cookies on Christmas Eve 😉

Festive M&M Candy Cane Cookies (adapted from Wayfair & Peapod’s “Festive Drop Cookies”)

yield: about four dozen cookies, depending on size

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white whole wheat (or regular whole wheat) flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups holiday M&Ms (I used minis but regular sized M&Ms will work too)
• 1/4 cup candy cane bits (you can just crush up a couple candy canes or look for candy cane bits in the bulk section of your grocery store)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter, shortening, and sugars on medium high until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat until combined.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat on low until it starts to come together; turn the mixer up to medium and beat until fully combined.
3. In a small bowl, combine M&Ms and candy cane bits. Shape tablespoons of dough into balls; dip the top half of the dough balls into the M&M/candy cane mixture to coat. Place the dough, M&M side up, onto a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are just barely golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool completely.