If you’ve been reading What’s Gaby Cooking for the past few years, you know that I’m obsessed with giving homemade gifts. And these Christmas M&M Cookies are top of the list this year.
As someone who loves to bake, spread the love, and eat my fair share of cookies… this is my time to shine. I mean, what says Happy Holidays more than a giant plate of Christmas M&M Cookies? This time of year the What’s Gaby Cooking kitchen is fully stocked. I have all the ingredients on hand at all times so I can make a batch of cookies at a moments notice!
These Christmas M&M Cookies have been a long-standing Dalkin family tradition for years. As kids we’d BEG my parents for those giant cookies at the mall – do you guys remember those? Ugh, they were so good!! And these are them – but better because they are made with love and in small batches ☺ So next time you’re at the market, grab an extra bag of M&M’s and get to work whipping up a batch of Christmas M&M cookies. And then send some to me because I LOVE THEM!!
Here are some tips and tricks when you’re making these Christmas M&M Cookies to achieve perfect results:
#1 – we are REALLY going to cream together the butter and sugar. See the image before, that’s what it should look like. You have to let it cream together for 3 minutes to ensure the butter and sugar properly combine. The color should be a pale light yellow and look like the image featured below.
#2 – I am a scoop and level kinda girl. The weighted conversion is listed in the recipe box below. If you spoon and level, that will not result in enough flour. I scoop my measuring cup into the flour and then use a knife to level it out. When you mix everything together, just mix the dry ingredients until JUST combined. No need to overmix.
#3 – there are 2 ways to chill the dough. If you’re pressed on time, scoop the dough into balls and pop them side by side on a baking sheet and freeze for 20 minutes or chill in the fridge for about an hour. If you don’t want to scoop, then you can chill the entire vessel of dough for 2 hours to really let the flavors come together. If you have time to chill the dough overnight, even better!
#4 – once the dough has chilled and you’re ready to bake, pop a few M&Ms’ into each cookie dough ball before transferring them to the baking sheet. That will ensure that some M&Ms stay visible while baking. Then pop them into the oven and let them bake!
There you have it! My tips and tricks for making the most perfect Christmas M&M Cookies! You can do this with any color palate to mix up the holidays! See below for my favorite tools for crafting these cookies!
What you’ll need:
Christmas M&M Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature (DO NOT MELT)
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs at room temperature
- 2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour measured by scooping the flour and leveling with knife (366 grams or 12.9 ounces)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2¼ cups Christmas Colored M&M’s divided
Instructions
- Cream together the butter and sugars in a mixer for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs and vanilla, making sure to scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.
- Add the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and mix on low until everything is incorporated. Fold in 1 ¾ cups of the M&M’s.
- Scoop out 2 tablespoons of dough, and transfer to a baking sheet, they can be closely spaced together as this is how they will chill.
- Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes if they are scooped into balls. If you’re chilling the dough in the mixing bowl, chill for at least 2 hours.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Place 12 of the cookie dough balls on a parchment lined baking sheet. Add a few M&M's on top of each cookie, making sure the M&M's stick into the dough.
- For cookies that are soft in the middle, bake for 11-13 minutes until just slightly golden around the edges. If you want them crisp, bake for 13-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before transferring them off the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Photo by Matt Armendariz / Food Styling by Adam Pearson / Recipe by What’s Gaby Cooking
pretty nostalgic!! these totally remind me of a delicious childhood treat!
I will take a dozen!
Is it one cup of packed in light brown sugar or unpacked? We
packed
Anyone would be lucky to get these cookies for a gift, they look delicious 🙂
I would love to get these as gifts! Yum!!
I absolutely love getting cookies and goodies for gifts! These look awesome!
Two of my favorites things combined!!
Todd-
#1: Red M&Ms
#2: Green M&Ms
♀️
Cookie JOY!!! Need a stack of these while I work!
Those look soooo good! Great recipe 🙂
Happy Blogging!
Happy Valley Chow
I love these at any time of the year!!!
M&M cookies are my favorite.
These came out PERFECT. Easy and refrigerating before baking is key. The difficult part is not eating the entire batch in one day.
These are my favorite Christmas cookies! They look delicious!
Perfect Christmas cookies!!!
Gaby, did you see your cookies in the Christmas episode of Major Crimes on TNT? A little boy was offered a plate of the Christmas M & M cookies. I did want to know how you manage to space the M and M’s so evenly over the tops of the cookies. Yours were beautiful but mine spread out to the edges. I also used the whole bag and not just half. Yum!
awwww that is so awesome – I didn’t see it but thank you for letting me know Paula 🙂
Mine spread to the edges when I make them too sometimes. They didn’t in this pic because we carefully placed them on top before baking. And using half the bag will help with them not spreading to the edges 🙂 xx
What size band of M&Ms did you use?
just the regular size – roughly 2 cups worth
I found a 10 oz bag was not nearly enough! Going to get more at the store tomorrow.
Can you make the dough and keep in fridge for a few days? Want to make for a Christmas party, but was thinking of doing it a couple days in advance.
absolutely
These are amazing!! Great tip to roll them in M&M’s before baking– I used more than 1 bag of M&M’s and I’m not mad about it! Next time I won’t put 12 on a tray at once though, they got a little crowded.
I tried this recipe today and they are delicious! The only trouble is that the color on the M&M’s ran while baking (especially the red ones) .. so they don’t look nearly as nice as yours. Do you have any tips on how to prevent this?
hmmmmm that’s never happened to me! Maybe try sprinkling the M&M’s on the top halfway through baking so they don’t have as much time to warm up and bleed?
Holy moly. These cookies win Christmas. I wasn’t sure they were done at 12 minutes but I trusted you Gaby and they set up PERFECTLY! If I want them to stay fresh until Friday, should I keep them at room temp or freeze until then? Thanks for yet another amazing recipe!
This recipe makes more than 12 cookies—unless by 12 servings you mean I’m supposed to have a few!
3 cookies per serving! Makes roughly 3 dozen
Love these cookies! The first batch I baked spread quite a bit, so I froze the rest of the cookie dough balls and when I baked them the next day straight from the freezer they looked EXACTLY like the photo.
I reduced the amount of flour to 2 cups and added 1/2 cup cocoa, added some chocolate chips and used hazelnut m&ms and gave these for valentine’s gifts. They were delicious!! I wanted to make these but the whole town was sold out of plain Valentine’s m&ms but I found 3 bags of the hazelnut ones so improvised . Delicious!
Will you explain the cooking banging thing you did, please and thank you!
Sooo good!!! Definitely one of my favorites!! I couldn’t stop eating them!
My family loved these at Christmas but I’m pretty certain they would be accepted any time of the year. DELICIOUS!
Do you léave the oven on while the cookie Dough is chilling?
We have made these so much in quarantine! Obviously just swap out xmas ones for whatever!
Followed this recipe to a T but my cookies are flat? Any suggestions? They still taste fab but would love
a thicker cookie like the picture.
do you spoon and level the flour or scoop and level?
I had the same thing happen to mine & Gaby, I Scoop and level
ok a couple of troubleshoot questions:
1: did you melt the butter or was it room temp?
2: did you chill the dough for at least 2 hours
Love these! They are so easy and delicious. They freeze really well too.
I had the same thing happen. I have made these a couple of times and they are delicious but they are always flat. I scoop and level the flour and chilled for over 2 hours. I would love for them to be thicker. Thanks Gaby!
Butter was also at room temperature.
I made these cookies for Christmas and they were a huge hit! I will definitely make them again next year. Everyone loved them! They are very easy to make.
Light brown or dark brown sugar?
either. I prefer light
An all-time favorite!! Love these with the red and green colors!!!
Do you scoop the dough into balls while dough is soft and then refrigerate (as shown in your video of the recipe) or should you refrigerate the dough before you scoop into balls (as written in the recipe)? Love all your recipes!
you can do it whichever way you prefer. The BEST results, I think, come when you scoop them into balls and then pop into the fridge and then it goes STRAIGHT into the oven after the fridge.
Is it best to use light brown sugar or dark brown sugar in this recipe? Does it matter? Thank you!!!
it does not matter. My preference is light. But if you only have dark on hard – totally still perf
The cookies turned out well, but was a little irritated nwith the way the recipe is written. Recipe says 10 min of prep, 10 minutes cook time. Instructs you to preheat the oven, but later tells you to chill the dough for at least two hours! Glad I trained myself to read the whole recipe first. Prep time should really read 2 hours and 10 minutes.
these cookies turned out INSANELY DELICIOUS!! Gaby does it again. Will be making 3-4 more batches cause I am obsessed.
Delish!!
Super yummy!! I usually love warm cookies out of the oven but I liked these cooked, even the next day! Not too sweet. I think my butter and eggs were not room temp enough so the cookies did spread out a little more then they should have (not as thick as the picture). Thanks for a great recipe!
Hi!
What vanilla extract and brand of butter do you
Recommend?
I use Land o Lakes unsalted butter and Neilsen Massey Vanilla
I’ve made these twice and they spread like crazy. What did I do wrong? They taste amazing, just don’t want them thin like Lacey cookies help!
These were awesome! Came together quickly and easily and turned out perfect! Only changes I made were 1tsp vanilla (personal preference) and no chill time. Super easy, definitely a keeper!
What parchment paper sheets do you use? Trying to find a good one on Amazon but seeing mixed reviews.
Best ever!! I made these for my family. They LOVED them!
Changed these up for Halloween and added Reese’s Pieces for the fall color scheme. I don’t love chocolate/chocolate chips, so I especially loved the peanut butter flavor. Looking forward to trying them again next week for Christmas. Thanks Gaby!
These taste great but my cookies came out totally flat ? What could cause this? I chilled the dough overnight so I know that cant be the reason. All my ingrediants were brand new also?? I want to try again for Valentines day.
did you read all the tips and tricks in the blog post about measuring? weights for comparison?