Valentine's Day Cookies

Valentine's Day Cookies - made dough January 30, 2020 from Buns in my Oven

The other easy way to Valentine-ize cookies is to add red, pink and white M&Ms. That's about the extent of my "decorating" for the holiday. Yup, that's all I got.

But hey, it's not so bad. This is a typical M&M sugar cookie which is easily customizable  for any holiday as long as you have holiday-appropriate M&Ms to use (green and red for Christmas, red, white and blue for Memorial Day and 4th of July, etc).

The cookies themselves are like chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips: crisp edges, brown sugar overtones, chewy middles. I did use white chocolate chunks to supplement the M&Ms

I also included these cookies in the care packages going to deployed service members. I shipped the packages the day after I baked the cookies so hopefully they'll get it somewhere close to Valentine's Day, if not before. Although, I will admit, it felt a little weird sending hearts-y cookies and Valentine's Day-themed cookies to strange men I'd never met before who don't know me at all. I assume they know I know they have wives and girlfriends and that this is more of a "hey, thank you for your service" gesture than anything romantic, lol.

8 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup Valentine mix M&Ms
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1. Combine melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until well combine. 
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
3. Add flour, baking soda and salt; beat until just combined. Stir in M&Ms and white chocolate chips.
4. Cover and refrigerate for 10-15 minutes to firm up dough. Portion chilled dough into 12 dough balls. Cover and refrigerate or freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.