Crunchy Peanut Butter M&M Cookies

The Salted Cookie is taking a vacay next week. Which means Friday cookies for my coworkers, so hopefully they can survive the next 10 days cookie-less. In my last nutella post, I gave you kiddos my salted cookie email address (thesaltedcookie@gmail.com) and said to email me suggestions for cookies if you wanted. I got an email first thing Monday morning from my coworker Sarah’s mom who is a follower of The Salted Cookie. Sarah is one of my designers who I like to call speedy photoshop fingers, because she is a wizard when it comes to Photoshop … especially all things maternity leave. Anyways, Speedy Photoshop Sarah’s mom has a blog (http://perfectingdeliciousness.com/) and gave me the cookie idea for peanut M&M cookies.

Two things the salted cookie loves: cookies and M&Ms. I was trying to think of how to go about this cookie and decided on a peanut butter base, with some crunchy peanut pieces and then some crushed up peanut M&Ms. Also, I’m definitely in need of a vacation because I got a little too into smashing the M&Ms with a meat mallet 🙂

Ingredients:

  • 2 2/3 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
  • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups whole peanuts
  • 1 cup crushed peanut M&Ms
  • 1/2 sup sugar, for rolling

Step 1:  Beat butter until creamy. Add peanut butter and beat until well combined. Add light brown sugar and 3/4 cup regular sugar. Add eggs and mix well.

Step 2: Add in the dry ingredients. I crushed up 1 cup of peanut M&Ms. I put them in a plastic bag, put a paper towel on top, and took a meat mallet to it. I probably bashed the bag of M&Ms too hard since pieces started flying all over my kitchen, but it was a good stress release.

Step 3: After mixing the M&Ms into the batter, pour the 1/2 cup of granulated sugar onto a plate. Using a melon scooper, roll out small balls of dough and place them in the sugar. Roll them until they are coated in the sugar and then put on a parchment lined or sil-pat lined baking sheet.

Step 4: Using a fork, press down the cookie in a criss cross pattern.

Step 5: Bake at 350 degrees for 10-13 minutes. Be careful not to overcook these.

 

And there you have it. Delicious, peanut buttery, crunchy M&M cookies. The M&Ms aren’t overpowering which is good. The peanuts add a nice level of crunch. You could use crunchy peanut butter but I think the actual peanuts are a nicer touch. Hopefully Susan from PerfectingDeliciousness thinks these are a success! But since she can’t taste this batch, we’ll have to leave it up to my trusty coworker taste testers tomorrow.

 

On that note, I’m going back to watching JWoww and Snooki’s new show. Yep, no shame. Happy Early Birthday to America and my mom. While there will be no coworker cookies next week, I’m sure my family will be happy to be my taste testers for a week.