Thursday 27 June 2013

Thursday Feasts #1 - M+M cookies

Welcome to one of my new features! Every Thursday I will be showing you guys something I've cooked or baked in the last week. And to start, we have these wonderful cookies that I made these for my boyfriend to take into work with him and I have to say, they are the best cookies I've ever made! They're really chewy and as you can see, kept their shape fantastically.

cookies, baking, m and ms

Om nom nom. I made a batch of 16 and there are only 5 left... The recipe is very simple. And here it is...

Adapted from All Recipes

Best M+M cookies

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups plain flour
  • A pinch of salt
  • A pinch of baking powder
  • 3/4 cups of melted butter or margarine
  • 3/4 cups of golden caster sugar  (I took out the brown sugar from the original recipe as I don't like the strong taste of it. If you don't mind, then sub it back in.)
  • 1/2 cup of white caster sugar
  • 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (Alternatively, if you have it, you can use vanilla flavoured caster sugar and skip this)
  • 1 whole egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 3/4s of a sharing bag of M+Ms = reduce if you want more cookie to M+M ratio!*
Method:
Oven temp: 160 degrees C 
  1. Combine the dry ingredients into one bowl and set aside. Melt the butter. Combine sugars in a big bowl.
  2. Pour the melted butter over the sugars and mix until it seems to be fully combined/not very grainy.
  3. Add in the whole egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract if you're using it and combine again until light and creamy.
  4. Sift in the dry ingredients and stir/fold until just combined. Add in your M+Ms and mix again.
  5. Grab a baking tray and portion out cookie dough onto the sheet (no need to grease) roughly 3 inches apart. Put the tray in the freezer for five minutes.
  6. Take the tray out of the freezer and bake for 6 minutes to 10 minutes. They're done when they start to go golden brown around the outside. When you take them out, leave them on the oven tray for fifteen minutes before removing them to cool.
*I used a whole bag of M+Ms and there really were too many. I also recommend roughly bashing half the M+Ms so that you get a nice difference in texture and more colour 'oomph'.

Now, number 5 is an odd instruction but it makes a lot of sense; cookies rely on the butter and binding ingredients in them being cold to keep their shape. If you've ever made cookies before you'll know that warm cookies spread incredibly quickly and lose their shape rapidly - they go thin and greasy. This stops this totally! You don't want to freeze them completely, just make sure that they're cold to the touch. When they go into the oven cold they cook through fast and don't have the temperature needed to 'dissolve' onto the tray.

You really can't beat one of these with a cup of steaming hot fresh tea. If you leave them on the saucer they warm up and go all gooey again!

cookies, baking, m and ms
Tea and a biscuit, that Great British institution!

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