Halloween Cookies

These are the best Halloween cookies! A sweet & chewy cookie is stuffed with peanut M&M candies and Reese's peanut butter cups. Add in some black and orange sprinkles for extra Halloween flair! This is an easy recipe and a fun treat!

Halloween night is fast approaching and I've got another recipe for you to make! (if you haven't checked out my Spooky Popcorn Balls yet now's your chance!)

These cookies are way better than your average Halloween cookie.

For starters, they are packed with candy, as they should be on a holiday celebrating all things candy! I chose to go with peanut M&Ms and Reese's peanut butter cups but you can use anything you want to. 

Second, they are super festive. I added mix-ins with lots of color to make these cookies stand out. The Halloween edition of M&Ms looks fabulous with pops of orange, purple and green.

I also added a healthy scoop of orange and black sprinkles to the cookie dough to add even more of a festive flair. 

Lastly, the actual cookie part is fantastic. They are soft and chewy and have a great flavor. If you decide to use Reese's, know that little bits of peanut butter cup will get mixed in the cookie and there will be surprising little pockets of PB goodness all throughout the cookie.

While you do get a lot of sweetness from the candy, the cookie itself is less sweet which balances out the sugar rush nicely. 

Great for a Halloween Party

These cookies are a great recipe to make for a Halloween party! They're always a crowd pleaser. 

I stuck with using peanut M&Ms and Reese's peanut butter cups since those are very popular candies but feel free to swap out what you like!

Try Kit Kats, Rolos, Twix bars, Snickers...you name it! However, I do feel it's important to keep the M&Ms in these cookies for visual purposes. It's hard to make them look as festive without them. But obviously, feel free to use plain M&Ms instead of the peanut kind. 

Let's bake Halloween cookies

This is a standard cookie recipe, so you don't need any special ingredients aside from the candies you want to mix in. 

You'll need: 

• Butter
• Light brown sugar
• Granulated sugar
• Vanilla
• Eggs
• All purpose flour
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Halloween edition M&Ms
• Full sized Reese's peanut butter cups (or other chocolate candy)
• Halloween sprinkles (jimmies are preferred)

How To:

These cookies come together quickly and this is a no chill cookie dough (my favorite kind!)

You'll start by mixing the butter and sugars at high speed using a hand mixer or stand mixer until light and fluffy. I repeat, light and fluffy. This will take a minute or two. 

Then, you'll add in your dry ingredients. 

Mix on the LOWEST speed setting until 95% of the flour has been absorbed. At that point, stop mixing using the mixer and finish by hand. By the way, this is my hard and fast rule to ensure you never get tough or dense cookies!

Once the dough is made, you'll add in your candies. 

Pro Tip:

I like to reserve a little bit of each kind of candy to dress up the tops of the cookies. It gives them a nice, polished look. Plus, it makes it easy to identify which type of candy is in the cookie. 

Read this before adding candy to the tops of your cookies!

You'll want to add your chopped M&Ms to the tops BEFORE baking since they hold up just fine in the heat.

BUT, if you add the chopped Reese's cups to the tops of the cookies BEFORE baking, they will burn. This goes for any chocolate covered candy you're using. 

If you want to decorate the tops with the chocolate candy, you need to add them AFTER the cookies are done baking. 

As soon as you pull them out of the oven, press a couple of pieces of candy into the tops of the cookies. The cookies are totally soft at this point so it doesn't take much effort. 

This way, you'll achieve that decorated look but your candies will not burn in the oven.

Baking Perfect Halloween Cookies

The other thing I want to mention about this recipe is the bake time. These cookies bake at 375° for 10-12 minutes and can get overdone quickly. 

Keep a close eye on baking these. 

I also highly recommend rotating the tray about ¾ through the bake time. I found 7 minutes to be a good mark. 

Bake until the edges are golden brown. Any further, and you'll end up with a hard/dry cookie. 

 

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