M&M Christmas Cookies Recipe - Cooking Classy (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep M&Ms from cracking in the oven? ›

If your M&Ms keep cracking or losing their shape while baking, try using mini M&Ms. These are smaller and less likely to melt, which is why they're my favorite for this recipe. You can also try freezing your M&Ms before adding them to the dough which will also help them to retain their shape while baking.

How to Make Crispy Cookies. While brown sugar keeps your cookies moist and soft, white sugar and corn syrup will help your cookies spread and crisp in the oven. Using more white sugar in your cookies will result in a crispier end product. To achieve a crispy cookie, skip the rest in the fridge.

As for the cookies—made for cookie swaps, church potlucks, household snacking, and Santa's plate—there is one little cheat: make now, freeze for later. You'll find that most of your favorite Christmas cookie recipes can be made anywhere from a month to six months before the 25th of December.

Hand-mix the M&Ms into the dough.

To keep the M&Ms from bleeding color into the cookie dough, gently stir them in by hand. This also helps to avoid the candies breaking apart.

M&Ms: You can use regular-size, mini, or a mix of both. I like to crush some of them, too, to sprinkle on the top before baking.

Putting a slice of fresh white bread in the container with the cookies will help the cookies stay soft: fresh bread is moist, and that slice will give up its moisture for the greater good: keeping the cookies from drying out.

Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.

Cookies left out overnight are at risk of microbial contamination, especially if they contain perishable ingredients like eggs or dairy. Harmful bacteria, such as Salmonella, can multiply rapidly in these conditions, potentially causing foodborne illness if consumed.

Shortbread and spritz cookies are longer-lasting cookies, which means they are perfect for holidays when there is some competition on the table. After all, Christmas in many homes is celebrated with a variety of dishes and sweet treats.

Why are my Christmas cookies hard? ›

Hard cookies: you are over mixing, baking too long, baking at too high a temperature, or some combination of these. Cakey cookies: not enough brown sugar, too much or too little egg, too much flour, maybe you used baking powder instead of baking soda?

If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.

Butter temperature is KEY!

If your butter gets too warm at any stage before baking your cookies, you'll likely end up with flat sad cookies. Start with butter at a cool room temperature, about 67°F. Then keep the dough around that temperature until it hits the oven.

“We've actually changed the recipe of M&M's as America and the world knows it,” said Ryan Bowling, a spokesman for Mars Snackfood U.S. “This is a whole new recipe, both visually and to its taste as well.” The candies themselves are fatter and less uniform than traditional M&M's.

At between 86 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the melting point of chocolate is significantly lower than human body heat. This explains why it commonly melts when people hold it in their hands for too long. Most chocolate melts best between 104 and 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

The main difference between baking, and regular candy chocolate, is the sugar content. Baking chocolate has much less sugar.

"Don't leave the M&M's in the microwave for longer than 10-15 seconds," said Contreras. "If left in longer, the chocolate will burn and seize making it hard and not able to remelt." But that's not the only potential risk. "If the M&M's get too hot, those enjoying them can burn their mouths," she added.

This can happen if the heat was set too high or if you didn't stir it enough while melting it.