Mennonite Monday - Monster Cookies

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

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This week I chose Monster Cookies from the white church cookbook, page 67. If you have the cookbook you will see the recipe can be made as a whole batch or a half batch. I always choose the whole batch, so I can freeze some of the cookies to use in a pinch. This is also a great recipe to use if you want to make cookies for a holiday because the colors of M&Ms change with each holiday. However, using holiday M&Ms is a give away of how long the cookies have been in your freezer, especially if you happen to pull out cookies with Halloween M&Ms at Easter.

Monster Cookies Whole Batch

12 eggs
2 lbs brown sugar
4 cups white sugar
1 Tbl vanilla
1 Tbl syrup
8 tsp soda
1 lb butter
3 lbs peanut butter
18 cups oatmeal
1 lb chocolate chips
1 lb M & M candies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix in dishpan in order given.

I start the mixing process in my Kitchen Aid Mixer, but if you want an arm workout go ahead and try it by hand.

I usually just guess on the peanut butter based on the size of the jar of peanut butter I can buy. This time I thought I would measure it out and it is a good thing I did because my mother and I were having a conversation about these cookies a few weeks ago. Mike had told my mom that he liked the way I made the cookies better because they were softer. I said it was probably the 6 lbs of peanut butter in them that made them soft. My mom argued that she thought it was only 3 lbs of peanut butter in the recipe and wondered if I had doubled the peanut butter. Mike thought it was awesome that I had doubled the peanut butter, only to find out (because of this picture) that I actually only used 3 lbs. Yes mom, your were right and I was wrong.

Once you add the peanut butter the mixer will be completely full, so you will need to transfer the mixture to a fix and mix bowl to add the rest of the ingredients.

I put half of the oatmeal, chocolate chips and M&Ms in the bowl first.

Then the peanut butter mixture.

Then the rest of the oatmeal, chocolate chips and M&Ms. This makes it a little easier to mix.

The best way to mix this is with your hands even though it is messy.

Sometimes I put the finished dough in the refrigerator for a while to set up and because I don't have time to bake the whole batch. This maybe the reason why my cookies are so soft and a little under cooked.

Drop by spoon-fulls, flatten and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. I usually use a 1/4 cup of dough for each cookie and bake for 10 minutes because we like our cookies soft. If you want really big cookies use a 1/3 cup of dough for each cookie. If you make a smaller size of cookie beware that you will have a ton of cookies. I usually get around 90 cookies out of the whole batch.

Half Batch Recipe:
6 eggs
2 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp white syrup
4 tsp soda
1/2 lb butter (1 cup)
2 1/4 cups peanut butter
9 cups oatmeal
1/2 lb chocolate chips
1/2 lb M&Ms.
Mix in order given and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.