M&M Cookie Bars

Tomorrow is Christmas!  Can you believe it?!  This year has gone so fast, and to be honest it doesn't even feel all that festive for Christmas this year, to me anyway.  I hope you all have a wonderful, safe, happy and healthy Christmas... although if you make these, you may find yourself a little less healthy than you would like ;)  MUAHAHA

So yes, Christmas Eve baking.  A friend of mine from highschool days (*shoutout to Danielle*) made these the other day, posted a picture to Instagram, and I immediately perked up because they were so colourful and looked so amazing!  I asked for the recipe, with which she duly obliged and here we are.  You know how I ADORE anything rainbow and colourful, so I have lots of photos with this post!

In my mind, they looked like fudge brownies that aren't brown, with pretty M&Ms strewn through it, so I was pretty excited to make them.

INGREDIENTS
2 & 1/8 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
170g butter (or 12 tbsp), melted and cooled slightly
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla essence
340g of M&Ms (plain)

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees C
• Grease a pan (9x13 inches, or  9x9 if you want it thicker) if you're not using a silicone one (honestly, where would we be without silicone these days)
• In a medium bowl, sieve together flour, baking soda and salt
• In a large bowl, whisk melted butter and sugar together until thoroughly combined (no lumps!)
• Add egg, yolk, vanilla and mix well
• Slowly fold in the dry ingredients using rubber spatula - don't over mix!
• Fold in 1 cup of the M&Ms
• Put mixture into the pan, smooth down, and sprinkle remaining M&Ms on top, pressing them lightly into the mixture
• Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the tops are starting to turn golden, the sides are beginning to pull away from the pan, and it is slightly firm to touch
• Cool completely, then cut

Usually most things taste AMAZING right out of the oven, still warm.  HOWEVER.  This is not one of those recipes.  Trust me.  Wait until they are completely cooled before you eat them.  Then you get the full impact of the 'thick and chewy' description.  They are MUCH better cold.  Weird, but true.  Just go with it.

These are delicious, however, for my family I think they might be a one-off.  They are SO so sweet, even for me with the biggest sweet tooth ever.  I cut it into 16 pieces, but I think I should have cut them even smaller, because they are so sweet I can't even finish one whole piece!  Probably gonna give most of them away because my family can't eat it all, in addition to the food we have for Christmas day tomorrow!!!

Merry Christmas folks!

Recipe Inspiration: http://www.whatmegansmaking.com/2013/01/thick-and-chewy-mm-cookie-bars.html