Perfectly Chewy Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies

These chocolate chip M&M cookies are heaven: super soft, perfectly chewy, and jammed full of M&M candies. The cookies have a terrific chew - the result of using two egg yolks in the cookie batter rather than a whole egg. This is a small batch baking recipe that makes 12 cookies, and no stand mixer is needed. Best of all, the cookie dough requires no chill time in the refrigerator, and can be baked right away!

Hi hi! Just popping in to share the recipe for these m&m cookies- this is about as halloween as you're going to get from me. I've never really been into lots of spooky baking, but I am a massive fan of adding candy to cookies, and I LOVE m&ms.

As a baking blogger, I already have an extensive cookie recipe collection, filled with a ton of chocolate chip cookie recipes, but these these chocolate chip M&M cookies are super delicious. I made them a whole bunch this week, tweaking the recipe to get it right.

These m&m chocolate chip cookies are a small batch chocolate chip cookie recipe. They have an egg yolk base (like my egg yolk chocolate chip cookies) using two egg yolks rather than a whole egg, which gives the base of the cookie a super delicious chew and texture. These cookies use a melted butter base, but if you wanted to brown the butter to add extra depth of flavour like I do in my brown butter chocolate chip cookies you could too.

They are absolutely jammed with m&ms and I popped some chopped dark chocolate in there too, just to balance things out. These disappeared very quickly in my house - I love them and I hope you do too! If you would like a cookie bar version of these chocolate chip M&M cookies, check out my M&M cookie bar recipe! If you're after a larger scale batch of cookies, you can either scale this recipe, or add candy to my Perfect chocolate chip cookies. If you still have yolks to use, I have a whole section of recipes to use up egg yolks on my site!

Why I love these m&m cookies

• No mixer required. I just use a bowl, a whisk and a spatula to make these cookies (and a scale of course). I love using my stand mixer but I also love the simplicity of a recipe just made by hand in a bowl.
• Super Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. This recipe uses two egg yolks rather than a single egg. The fat from the yolk provides amazing moisture to the recipe. It also gives the chocolate chip cookie base an incredible chewy texture. These are great to make if you have any extra egg yolks on hand!
• Small Batch Recipe. This m&m cookie recipe only makes 12 cookies - you can bake 6 off immediately and keep the rest for later, or do them all at once!
• No Chill Time. I know lots of cookies ask you to chill the dough (I have a few which do for a specific reason), but this recipe can be baked off straight away. I know I'm impatient sometimes and just want a quick cookie recipe - this is it!

How to make m&m cookies

These small batch m&m cookies are super quick to make. Here's how you do it.

• Mix together wet ingredients. In this recipe (and lots of recipes) sugar is classed as a wet ingredient. Pop it into a mixing bowl and add the sugars and the egg yolks, and mix it all together until thickened slightly.
• Add dry ingredients. This recipe is super simple - just uses All-purpose flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Pop those in an incorporate with a spatula. Don't over mix here. You will mix the dough more when you incorporate the mix ins, so it is ok to have a little flour remaining.
• Add your mix-ins. Add the m&ms and chopped chocolate and stir to incorporate.
• Scoop your cookies. I like to use a cookie scoop to portion out my dough.
• Bake. There is no chill time in this m&m cookie recipe, so you can just pop them straight into the oven!

The Role of Chill Time in Cookies

When I was making these m&m cookies, I ended up testing a whole range of chill times with the cookies. Please excuse the phone image below (I just grabbed it from my IG stories), but I think it is so interesting to see how the chill time in a recipe affects the final outcome.

Multiple tests and cross tests

You can see that I tested a whole bunch of chill times and sugar and butter ratios within the m&m cookies, just to get the perfect balance. The cookie in this recipe is the one that is pictured bottom right. You are welcome to tweak the recipe to your liking to achieve your favourite texture of cookie! (I just ask that if you do and you have a disaster, please don't blame my recipe! haha).

The difference between chilling and not chilling

I often find that in terms of spread, there is a big difference between no chill and a 30 minute chill, especially when the recipe uses melted butter like this one. The time in the fridge gives the dough a chance to firm up a little. This means that the rate of spread is much slower than a cookie which is still at room temperature.

The difference between a 30 minute chill and an hour chill is not as significant. However I did notice a few differences - mainly that the cookie remained slightly thicker, whereas with the 30 minute chill time the mix ins stuck out a little on the top of the cookie.

I then tweaked again to see if I could eliminate the chill time in the recipe all together by reducing the quantity of butter by 30g and having quite a large brown:white sugar ratio within the mix.

The final outcome

I know some people swear by chilling their cookie dough, but I am impatient. Often I decide that I want cookies, and that they need to happen immediately. For this reason, I like to have a few recipes up my sleeve for instant cookies. A few of my other recipes do use a chill time. I find that the best way to make those and still have instant cookies is to freeze some of the dough so you always have it on hand.

Why the ratio of brown to white sugar is important in cookies.

You will see from the image above that I was also playing around with the ratio of brown to white sugar in the recipe. The most important thing that this highlights is how important it is to use a scale when you are baking. I was only altering the quantity of butter and sugar by 10 or 20g, and it was enough to make a huge difference.

Typically when I am testing, I tweak the quantity of brown and white sugar in recipes to control the spread of the cookie. In general, brown sugar gives a thicker, chewier cookie, while white sugar gives spread and the crunchy edges. Combined with the quantity of butter, these are the factors that I usually change.

The advantage of testing both chill time and the butter / sugar ratio within the same batch is that it saves you making a whole new batch each time. I just mix up one batch of dough, bake some off straight away, and leave some to chill and then bake those too. You can also play around with different oven temperatures for bake time here too, meaning you can get up to 6 tests just from the same batch of cookies (for example no chill, 350°f bake temp, no chill, 375°f bake temp, 30 min chill, 350°f bake temp, 30 min chill 375°f bake temp etc).

Can Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies be made ahead?

I haven't tried freezing the dough but this dough formula is incredibly similar to other recipes which freeze great. To freeze cookie dough, freeze it on a lined sheet pan until solid then transfer to a ziploc bag. You can also freeze in a container with the lid off and pop a lid onto the container once frozen.

To see all my tips on freezing cookie dough and baking from frozen, check out my post: How to freeze cookie dough

How to make cookies thinner

I wanted to include this as I am often asked what my recipe process is / how to change the texture of a cookie etc and because I tested all the variations, I can confidently tell you how these m&m cookies will turn out if you change the factors. Here's what you can tweak for your very own recipe testing if you like:

• Super thin and crispy. Increase the butter quantity to 120g, and use 55g of white sugar and 110g brown sugar. Bake immediately. They will spread loads on the pan. Check after 10 minutes bake time.
• Still thin but with a little thickness in the centre. Same as above, but chill the dough for 30 minutes to an hour before baking.
• Slightly chewier, slightly thinner than the recipe as written: Use the same sugar quantities as the recipe in this post (45g white and 120g brown), but increase butter quantity to 120g. Bake straight away for thinner cookies, and chill dough for 30 minutes to an hour for slightly thicker.
• Slightly Thicker cookies with no chill. Make the recipe as written. I found this was fairly similar to the 120g butter with a 30 minute chill time recipe, but spread just a touch less. For me this is perfect, although it is good to know if I want it just a tiny bit thinner, that increasing the butter quantity and chilling the dough works great too.

For all my tips and tricks on how to make the best chocolate chip cookies, check out my ultimate guide: How to make perfect chocolate chip cookies

Frequently Asked Questions

What tools and equipment do you use?
You can see a full list of all the tools I use here

Can these cookies be made ahead?
I haven't tried freezing the dough but this dough formula is incredibly similar to other recipes which freeze great. To freeze cookie dough, freeze it on a lined sheet pan until solid then transfer to a ziploc bag. You can also freeze in a container with the lid off and pop a lid onto the container once frozen.

Why do you say to re-weigh the butter?
When you melt butter, a little evaporates. This rate of evaporation may vary from butter brand to butter brand, so the only accurate way is to weigh it once it has melted. 100g of butter, melted is not the same thing as 100g melted butter. Try it for yourself if you're curious - measure out 100g butter, melt it, then re-weigh. It may be a tiny bit off and we are all about accuracy here at Cloudy Kitchen!

How do you store chocolate chip cookies?
Store these M&M chocolate chip cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to five days.

For more Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes, check out:

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