The Monster of All Cookies

If you have not heard of Monster Cookies, then I don't know how you have survived life to this point of time.  These cookies are basically every delicious thing baked into lumps of amazingness.  Lent is almost over and I have been thinking of all the things that I can do and have once the forty days of sacrifice are up.  Monster cookies came to mind because they have peanut butter, chocolate and oatmeal, a perfect blend of sweet and salty.  I decided to make some tonight and take some into work with me tomorrow night, then freeze the rest and take with us to Munchkie's Grandparents's for Easter.

We went to the store for the ingredients and on the way Munchkie was so excited.  She kept saying, "make cookies!  Yeah, make cookies!" Then her face lit up and she said "make cookies like Mimi! Uncle Yushin  likes cookies (nodding her head)." So I said, "Yes, Uncle Justin does like cookies, you're right." To which she replied "send Uncle Yushin cookies?  Yeah!  Send Uncle Yushin cookies!"  So we are going to send a package to both of Munchkie's uncles I think, since they are away from home.  So with Munchkie's help we made some hopefully yummy cookies (do you have any idea how difficult it is to not try the batter, or the product of your baking?).  I pulled from a few different recipes because I wanted to eliminate corn syrup, cut down on the butter, stuff like that, but don't think that makes these cookies healthy.  One of the great things about Monster Cookies is that you can put whatever delicious things you want in them.  Most of the time I've seen chocolate chips and M&Ms as a staple, but you can switch it up to whatever you think sounds good.

Monster Cookies

1. 6 eggs
2. 2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
3. 2 cups granulated sugar
4. 1 teaspoon salt
5. 2 teaspoons vanilla
6. 4 teaspoons baking soda
7. 28 ounce jar of creamy peanut butter
8. 2 sticks of softened butter (yes this is cutting down)
9. 1 bag M&Ms
10. 1 bag semisweet chocolate chips
11. 1 cup crunched up pretzels
12. 9 cups quick oats

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. (Parchment paper is my new favorite thing!  It's so great, you don't even have to wash whatever you baked on, you just wipe it down, dry it off, and put it away.)
• In a large mixing bowl, or Kitchen Aide mixer, combine eggs and both kinds of sugar until creamed together.
•  Add in the salt, vanilla, baking soda, peanut butter and butter.
• Gently add the M&Ms and chocolate chips.
• At this point in time you have two options.  If you are using a large enough mixing bowl, you can continue to add the ingredients. If you are like me, and started in your Kitchen Aide, then you need to transfer the dough into a larger bowl.
• Mix in the oatmeal and then the pretzels.  

• Drop onto cookie sheets at your desired size, but keep them 2 inches apart.  I tended to go smaller, but they are supposed to be monster cookies.
• Bake for 8-10 minutes. DO NOT OVER BAKE! They are supposed to not look done.
• Let stand on cookie sheets for 3 minutes before transferring to wire racks to fully cool.
• Once completely cooled, store in airtight container or ziploc bag.

While these cookies are super easy, and fast to mix up.  They are called monster cookies are several reasons.  One of which is because it makes a monster batch.  I ended up with 86 cookies.  This is great for me because I have several plans for these cookies, but unless you plan on sharing or are practicing for competitive eating, you might want to cut the recipe down.  They do however, freeze quite well, and I intend on freezing most of mine for the next 6 days until I can enjoy sweets again.