Soft-Baked 4th of July M&M Cookies

Soft-Baked M&M Cookies - made May 31, 2020 from Together as a Family

I don't know what these taste like so, a rarity for me, I'm going to blog about them without being able to tell you one way or the other if they tasted good or not. I think they do. They looked good and they're a regular recipe for cookies so I think they turned out as well as any other M&M cookie recipe.

I baked these for military care packages and the reason I don't know what they tasted like is I packaged them all up for shipping. I normally hold back a taste test cookie or otherwise how do I know these are worthy of being sent??

But I was baking a bunch of cookies to fill multiple boxes and I ended up needing every cookie from this batch for the boxes. I've been baking long enough that I can usually tell if something turned out and these seemed to turn out so I decided I didn't need to taste test them. Multiple military service members can do that for me. And I always tell myself they've got to taste better than MREs, right?

If you want to make the M&Ms "pop" in your cookies, reserve some M&Ms and immediately push them into the tops of the baked cookies as soon as you take the baking sheets out of the oven. The M&Ms that are cracked on top are the ones who baked into the cookies. The non-cracked ones are the ones I pushed into the cookies as soon as I took them out of the oven.

12 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup M&Ms, plus more for additional garnish

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine butter and sugars. Beat until combined, creamy and light in color, about 1 minute. 
2. Add egg, egg yolk and vanilla; beat until combined.
3. Add flour, baking soda, and salt, mixing on low speed until just combined. Stir in the M&Ms.
4. Portion dough into golf-ball-size balls. Cover and chill for several hours or freezer overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown and middles no longer look raw. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.