Soft and Chewy Mini M&M Cookies

Drop cookies are some of my favorite recipes to whip up in the kitchen when I want a sweet treat as soon as possible.

Sometimes I want something a bit fancier with brown butter, like these oreo chocolate chip cookies, but most of the time I want something that can be ready in under 30 minutes and doesn't need any fancy equipment - like these mini m&m cookies!

These m&m cookies are based on my chocolate chip butterscotch cookies, but with a few key changes to make them simpler to make and no chilling time. I skipped brown butter and instead used melted butter, and then slightly increased the flour so these cookies don't need any chilling time.

Soft & Chewy Cookies

• Make sure your melted butter is cool before you start making this recipe.
• I recommend using mini M&Ms here, regular ones might be slightly too big!
• To amp up the yum factor, I used vanilla bean paste instead of extract. If you don't have vanilla bean paste then use an equal amount of vanilla extract!

Step 1: Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. If you want to cut down on dishes and truly make this one bowl, then skip this step! You can just add all the dry ingredients in step 4.

Step 2: Make sure your melted butter is no longer hot. Add the light brown sugar and white sugar and whisk until smooth.

Step 3: Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla bean paste and whisk again until smooth. It should be quite thick at this stage.

Step 4: Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to fold everything together. It will take a few minutes for everything to combine properly. Stir in the mini m&ms.

Step 5: Use a 1.5-tablespoon cookie scoop to scoop out 24 cookie dough balls. Place them on 2 parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake in an oven preheated to 350°Fahrenheit/175°Celsius for 9-12 minutes. Any cookies that aren't being baked right away should be placed in the fridge.

Step 6: Once out of the oven, use a biscuit cutter or large glass to scoot the cookie until it is a perfect circle. Gently press on extra mini m&ms and some flaky sea salt. Enjoy with a glass of milk!

How to Get Bakery-Style Cookies

Once the cookies are out of the oven, use a biscuit cutter or a large mug to gently 'scoot' the cookies into a perfect circular shape. Then gently press on extra m&ms and some flaky salt!

I don't recommend adding a ton of extra m&ms on top before baking, as I found that the colors started to bleed into the dough.