M&M Sugar Cookies

I haven’t forgotten about the rest of Milwaukee.  Fear not.

But yesterday, my roommate and I made M&M sugar cookies, and I wanted to share them with you all.

Be warned: these cookies are pretty much just butter.  It’s a little disgusting, and you will fully nauseate yourself after only a couple of them.  But they are so worth it.  (Come on, I know you’re sitting there making faces at the idea, but secretly you want this.  You know you do.)

The recipe comes from one of my favorite bakeries in New York, Milk and Cookies.  It’s a very small place, and we found it by accident wandering around one day.  The cookies, however, are famous enough that the bakery merits a place on tours of the city.  Annoying when you’re sitting in there trying to enjoy your cookies, but it’s awesome that they are so well-loved.  Also, it is located on a street called–I kid you not-Cherry Lane.  Yes really.

So here we go:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups butter (oh yeah, there it is)
• 1/4 cups (super)fine sugar (we just used regular old organic cane)
• 2 large egg yolks (okay.  okay.  The moment I typed that was the moment I realized it only said “yolks”.  Shit.  Okay.  That explains a lot).
• 2 tsp vanilla (skipped that, as usual)
• 2 tbsp milk
• Handful of sugar, mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg
• 1 metric fuck ton of M&Ms, or your candy of choice

As I opened my recipe book to the right page, I flipped past pages caked with flour, thumbing a smear of sugar and butter mixture that found its way onto the edge of the pages. Far from being upset about messing up my book, I’m delighted that I’m finding the opportunities to use it.  Gross stains a mark of achievement in baking.  (And possibly other things, but you know what, don’t think about that.)

Recipe:

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Try to contain yourself and eat only a little of this.  If you do indulge, try not to hate yourself afterwards.

Add the yolks (ah, key word, oops) one at a time, making sure each addition is thoroughly combined.  At the vanilla and beat for a while longer.

Add half the flour, then the milk, and then the rest of the flour.  Beat until the ingredients are just combined, and while the dough is still streaky, stir in the M&Ms and lick the beaters thoroughly.

Et voilà:

Cover the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.  The book says you can refrigerate it for up to three days, but why wait that long?

When ready to bake, break out the delicious sugar and spice mixture.

Form the dough into small-ish balls (the book says 1 1/2 in diameter) and roll them around in the sugary goodness.

Bake for about ten minutes, or until golden brown around the edges.

Sorry, no picture of the finished product!  But trust me, these are delicious cookies.  Anything that can claim origins in Milk and Cookies is going to overwhelm you in sugary goodness.  Trust me.  And if worst comes to worst, foist them onto other people so you feel less guilty about consuming what is essentially, as Haley put it, a mountain of butter and M&Ms.  (That’s what we did, and it sort of worked.)

This coming weekend: you wouldn’t even believe what we’re planning for this weekend, so I’ll just let it be the Surprise That Rocks Your Face Off.