Salted Peanut M&M Cookies
These salted peanut M&M cookies are soft, crisp & fudgy. Made with brown butter & full of nuts & chocolate, the flavour is next level!
Servings: 13 Cookies
Equipment
- Stand Mixer
- Food Processor
- Cookie Scoop
- Large Round Cookie Cutter
- 3 Large Baking Trays (Lined With Baking Parchment)
Ingredients
- 200 g Unsalted Butter
- 1 tsp Toasted Milk Powder
- 145 g Light Brown Sugar
- 130 g Caster Sugar
- ½ tsp Vanilla Paste
- 1 Large Egg
- 2 Egg Yolks
- 285 g Plain Flour
- ¾ tsp Baking Powder
- ¾ tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda
- ½ tsp Espresso Powder
- ¼ tsp Table Salt
- 220 g Milk Chocolate M&Ms
- 100 g Salted Peanuts
- 100 g Dark Chocolate
- Maldon Salt To Finish
Instructions
Cookie Dough
- First, brown 120g of the butter over a medium heat, whisk in the toasted milk powder then transfer to a bowl. Leave to cool to room temperature, which should take around an hour to cool.
- Whilst your brown butter is cooling, chop the remaining 80g of butter into even pieces & leave to soften at room temperature.
- Add both of the butters, the sugars & vanilla paste to the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached. Beat until combined & just turning pale, 1-2 minutes. Don’t overmix! We don’t want to add too much air into the dough as this will affect the baked cookie.
- In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg & yolks together then with the mixer running on a medium speed, gradually mix into the dough.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, espresso powder & salt then add into the cookie dough. Mix on a low speed until just combined.
- Roughly blitz half of the M&Ms in a food processor then add into the cookie dough along with the remaining whole M&Ms.If you haven't got a food processor, you could place the M&Ms into a sealed bag then break them up with a rolling pin.
- Next, roughly chop the peanuts & 35g of the dark chocolate & add into the dough. Mix on a low speed until combined. Chill the cookie dough in the fridge for 20 minutes, to firm up slightly.
- Whilst the cookie dough is chilling, chop the remaining dark chocolate into 13 chunks.
- Once the dough has firmed up, scoop into 13 equally sized balls, roughly weighing 90g each. Press a chunk of chocolate into the top.
- Place the balls of cookie dough into a container (or onto a baking tray) then refrigerate overnight.
Baking
- The next day, preheat an oven to 180°c/160°c fan (356°f/320°f).
- Place 3-4 balls of cookie dough onto a lined baking tray, making sure that there’s plenty of room between them.
- Bake the cookies for 10 minutes then open your oven door, lift up the baking tray inside the oven by a few inches then let it drop down against the oven rack. Use enough force so that the cookie starts to deflate. (This is the “Pan Banging” method.)
- Bake for a further 2 minutes then repeat the pan banging process.
- Bake for another 2 minutes (bringing the total bake time to 14 minutes) then remove from the oven.
- Using a large, round cookie cutter, scoot each cookie into a perfect round shape (this step is optional but makes the cookies more uniform).
- Sprinkle each cookie lightly with Maldon salt then leave to cool completely, on the tray.
- Repeat the cooking process with the remaining cookies, baking 3-4 cookies at a time.
Notes
1. Cooking In An Aga – Bake the cookies in the baking oven on the bottom set of runners.
2. Storage – Kept in an airtight container, these cookies will stay fresh for up to 3 days. Any uncooked, portioned dough can be stored in the freezer for several months. To cook, defrost them first!
3. Overnight Chill – The cookie dough requires an overnight chill in the fridge before being baked. Don’t be tempted to skip this step otherwise the cookies will spread out too much as they cook.
4. The Pan Banging Method – The way we bake these cookies, is by using a technique called “Pan Banging”. This was created by Sarah Kieffer (The Vanilla Bean Blog) & is used in this recipe to create pools of melted chocolate & to give the cookies a crinkled texture.
5. Chocolate – When making cookies, it’s best to use bars of chocolate that have been roughly chopped as appose to chocolate chips. Chocolate chips won’t melt properly & you won’t get the molten pools of chocolate that can be achieved with chopped chocolate. I find that a bar of 72% dark chocolate works best!
6. Espresso & Toasted Milk Powders - Espresso powder & toasted milk powder is used to enhance the chocolate flavour in these cookies. Don’t worry if you haven’t got any, they’ll still taste great without them! My recipe for both of these can be found here.
7. Brown Butter -You’ll need to brown a portion of the butter for this recipe. My guide to making this can be found here.