Chocolate chip cookies with red, white, and blue M&Ms

I'm not as fond of M&M cookies as much as I like how they look. Thanks to the proliferation of all the different colors and the M&M people being savvy enough to cater to their seasonal market, you can turn almost any recipe into a holiday-appropriate one. I found this recipe originally as a Christmas cookie made with red and green M&Ms.

Christmas still seems excessively far away and I had a bag of red, white and blue M&Ms so it was easy enough to make patriotic cookies to cheer on the American athletes representing the United States at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio. The recipe is the same and you only need to swap out the appropriately colored M&Ms to make it holiday friendly (don't forget that for Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Easter baking as well).

The dough was incredibly easy to make and held together well. After you mix it, remove the bowl from the mixer and add the M&Ms by stirring in with a wooden spoon. That will help keep most of them whole and not break them into bits. Reserve a large handful to press along the tops once you form the dough balls so you can strategically place them for maximum colorful effect.

The cookies themselves were quite good and didn't spread. If you don't like M&Ms and the crunch of the candy coating in them (that's why I'm not quite as fond of them in cookies), simply omit them and replace completely with chocolate chips. Either way, whether as traditional invented-by-Ruth-Wakefield chocolate chip cookies or as red, white, and blue accented cookies, they can help you capture any holiday or patriotic spirit.

Go Team USA!

Olympic sized M&M cookies
From The Pinning Mama

1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup shortening
1-1/2 cups dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
4-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 bag M&M mini baking bits or M&Ms of your choice

1. Mix butter, shortening and sugars until light and fluffy.

2. Add eggs and vanilla; mix until combined.

3. Combine flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt.

4. Gradually add dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix until combined. If the dough is crumbly, stir in water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until it just holds together. The dough should not be sticky.

5. Add in M&Ms and stir with wooden spoon until evenly distributed.

6. Using 1/4 cup measure, scoop out dough and form into golf-ball-size dough balls. Cover and freeze for several hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space frozen dough on baking sheets and bake cookie 12-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown and middles are no longer raw.

7. Cool several minutes on baking sheets then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

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