Description
Christmas Kitchen Sink Cookies are a delightful holiday treat featuring a buttery cookie base loaded with festive mix-ins including red and green M&M’s, white chocolate chips, pretzels, potato chips, and colorful sprinkles. These cookies offer a perfect balance of sweet, salty, and crunchy textures, ideal for holiday gatherings or gift-giving.
Ingredients
Scale
Cookie Dough
- 3/4 cup salted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
- 2 egg yolks, at room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
Mix-ins
- 1/2 cup red and green M&M’s
- 1/3 cup white chocolate chips
- 1/3 cup pretzel pieces
- 1/3 cup potato chip pieces
- 2 tbsp red and green jimmies (sprinkles)
Instructions
- Preheat Oven: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. This step ensures even baking and easy cleanup.
- Cream Butter and Sugars: In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the softened butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar together for about two minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy, which helps create a tender cookie texture.
- Add Egg Yolks and Vanilla: Mix in the egg yolks and vanilla bean paste (or extract) on medium speed for two minutes, until the mixture becomes pale and fluffy, adding richness and flavor to the dough.
- Combine Dry Ingredients: Add the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to the wet mixture. Mix until just combined to avoid overworking the dough, which can result in tough cookies.
- Fold in Mix-ins: Gently fold in the red and green M&M’s, white chocolate chips, pretzel pieces, potato chip pieces, and red and green jimmies using a spatula, ensuring even distribution without breaking the candy or chips.
- Scoop Dough: Scoop the dough into 20 evenly sized balls and place them about two inches apart on the prepared baking sheets to allow room for spreading.
- Optional Decoration: Optionally, press a few extra mix-ins on top of each cookie dough ball for a festive appearance that resembles the classic pictured cookies.
- Bake Cookies: Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes. Bake for 10 minutes if you prefer chewier centers or 12 minutes for crisper edges.
- Shape Cookies (Optional): Immediately after removing the cookies from the oven, use a large circular cookie cutter to swirl and shape the cookies into perfect circles, gently pushing the edges together.
- Cool Cookies: Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes to firm up, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely for about 10 minutes.
- Store Leftovers: Store any leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days to maintain freshness.
Notes
- Measure your flour properly by spooning it into the measuring cup and leveling it off, or for best results, weigh your flour to avoid adding too much and ending up with dry cookies.
- Using a cookie cutter right after baking helps achieve perfectly shaped cookies and pushes the mix-ins together, enhancing the visual appeal.
- Adding extra mix-ins on top of the dough balls before baking is optional but makes the cookies look festive and colorful.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 150
- Sugar: 10g
- Sodium: 120mg
- Fat: 7g
- Saturated Fat: 4g
- Unsaturated Fat: 2.5g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 20g
- Fiber: 1g
- Protein: 2g
- Cholesterol: 25mg
