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.

Chewy Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

A few weeks ago, I freaked out over these peppermint bark baking bits from Trader Joe’s (new vlog coming soon!!) and immediately invented a cookie recipe to shove them in. I’ve now made these cookies 18 (okay, 3) times in the past couple weeks and I can’t. get. enough. They taste like brownie batter with the slightest hint of peppermint and are dangerously addictive.

I made the mistake of bringing the entire first batch of cookies into work, leaving only one cookie for Mike to try, which officially makes me the meanest – I KNOW. So, the other night, we’re finishing up dinner and Mike has dropped roughly 1,000 hints about how much he would just looooove a chewy chocolate cookie and it’s toooo bad  all the cookies ended up in someone ELSE’S belly, and I decide to redeem myself by whipping up another batch. At this point it’s 9PM and my bedtime is rapidly approaching, so I’m trying to make these cookies AFAP (as fast as possible. invented for the sake of this story), speeding around the kitchen like a Tazmanian devil. While the butter and sugar are spinning around inside the mixing bowl getting fluffy, I fling open the cabinet to grab the flour like a whirling dervish – thereby knocking the metal lid of my flour canister INTO THE MIXER WHICH IS ON. HIGH.

COOKIE DOUGH EXPLOSION. MELANIE CRYING. THE SOUND OF METAL SCRAPING METAL (a sound one hopes to never hear whilst BAKING). HELP. HELP. HELP.

If you have ever wondered what a cookie crime scene might look like, just imagine this:

Dough splattered onto every surface of your kitchen. Cocoa powder (which is im.poss.i.ble. to clean) sprayed across the counters and floor. Flour in your hair, eyes, and life.

After screaming for five seconds I had the clarity of mind to TURN OFF the mixer before it died a sad and messy death. Somehow I managed to salvage the few scoops of dough left at the bottom of the bowl to bake up a couple cookies, and all was well in the MJM household.

The moral of the story? Make these delicious cookies, but don’t try to do it AFAP.

Chewy Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

yield: about 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups peppermint bark baking bits (if you can’t find the bits, you could use a combo of chocolate chips and candy cane pieces)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high until fluffy, about 1 minute. Add vanilla, then scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides to incorporate ingredients as needed.
2. In a separate bowl, add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir on low speed until combined. Add the baking bits; stir until incorporated.
3. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto a baking sheet. Bake for 8 minutes – do not over bake, or the cookies will be crispy instead of chewy! Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Candy Cane Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oops, I did it again.

Seriously though, how many chocolate+peppermint things can one girl make?  I blame Wegmans’ bulk candy section.  Pre-crushed candy canes?  Sure, I’ll take 15 scoops.

Now I have a giant bag of candy cane pieces sitting in my cabinet just begging me to sprinkle them on any (and every) thing.

I threw some peppermint bits into my standard chocolate chip cookie dough batter along with the last remnants of the candy cane Joe Joe’s and holy guacamole…these cookies are GOOOOD.  The candy cane melts into the dough and then hardens up as it cools, creating a crunchy (and pretty!) peppermint shell.

Use this chocolate chip cookie recipe (or your favorite) and add 1/2 cup candy cane bits, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling on top.  Make sure you grease your cookie sheet, or better yet, use parchment paper.  Those melted candy canes can be sticky little suckers!

Now all we need is some snow!