Recipe: Monster Cookies

Ahhh, the memories that food can conjure up. These cookies were my grandmother's specialty. I don't know why they are called Monster cookies, I always figured it was because the whole batch was enough to feed a monster, seriously, it makes a ton! My grandfather would joke that when she made the Monster batch, she would take off her shoes and clean her feet and mix it up with her feet because it was too big to stir....I still don't know if that is true or not!


These wonderful things are full of peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate chips, and M&Ms. I have even convinced myself that they are good for you because of all the oats. I even added 2-3 tablespoons of ground flax seeds this time to make them even more nutritional. (If you are a dietitian or nutritionist and you look at this recipe and say..."Heather, you are smokin' weed, these are not good for you!" then that is okay, I just like thinking that I am getting protein and oats and other good stuff!)

Anyway, these cookies came with the holidays when I was growing up. Whenever the family would get together, my grandmother would make up a batch of these wonderful cookies and then send us all home with some because there were so many. We literally would eat them all day long, before eating, after eating, snacks, etc and there would still be a ton left. The full "Monster" version makes around 30 dozen, if I remember correctly. These are also great for the holidays because you can make one (huge) batch and freeze some of it and just keep making more as you need them for parties and things.

Here is the recipe:

Monster Size (about 30 dozen)

Ingredients:

eggs 12

brown sugar 4 Cups

white sugar 4 Cups

vanilla 4 teaspoons

corn syrup 1 Tablespoon

baking powder 8 teaspoons

butter, melted 2 Cups

peanut butter 3 pounds

quick oatmeal (although I think I have used regular before and it was fine) 18 cups

chocolate chips 4 Cups

M&M's plain 4 Cups

Large Version (about 15 dozen)

Ingredients:
eggs 6
brown sugar 2 Cups
white sugar 2 Cups
vanilla 2 teaspoons
corn syrup 1/2 Tablespoon
baking powder 4 teaspoons
butter, melted 1 cup (2 sticks)
peanut butter 2-2/3 Cups
quick oatmeal (although I think I have used regular before and it was fine) 9 Cups
chocolate chips 2 Cups
M&M's plain 2 Cups

Average Version (about 6 dozen)

Ingredients:

eggs 3
brown sugar 1 Cup
white sugar 1 Cup
vanilla 1 teaspoon
corn syrup none
baking powder 2 teaspoons
butter, melted 1/2 cup (1 stick)
peanut butter 1-1/3 cup
quick oatmeal (although I think I have used regular before and it was fine) 4-1/2 Cups
chocolate chips 1 Cup
M&M's plain 1 Cup

Instructions for all sizes:

Mix in the order given, then mold into even sized balls (You can freeze them at this point so they are ready to bake, just pop them out of the freezer and onto a cookie sheet. )

This is how it looks when its all in the bowl...and this is a big bowl (I made the Large size).

....and here they are, on a cookie sheet ready to bake...I choose to squish them with a fork right after this and before they went into the oven.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes. (If you want a flatter cookie, you might want to press them down with a fork like you do peanut butter cookies before you bake them.)

You can use variations, like crunchy peanut butter or the mini M&Ms. You can also add raisins, coconut, pecans, nuts, etc, but I like them just as they are. You won't ever see me tell you that you have to put raisins in anything because raisins ARE SCARY and I just don't do raisins in my food!

Here they are out of the oven! Some of the chocolate is a little smeared because I forgot to smoosh some of them down until after they had been baking for a few minutes so I smeared some of the chocolate...I am sure they taste the same though.

And this is about 40-50 more cookies that are ready to go into the freezer so I can have ready to bake cookies in my freezer for any old day that I feel the hankerin' for a monster cookie. Actually, these little morsels will go with me on my trip later this week to retreat! ( I don't know if you could just hear the scream of Yahoo and excitement, that was my sisters when they read that I was bringing these childhood favorites to retreat!)

RETREAT! Retreat is something I look forward to twice a year. Its a weekend where my lovely sisters and some friends of ours all go to a lodge in Central Texas in the middle of nowhere and we hole ourselves away for a weekend and just do crafts and scrapbooking and a lot of laughing. In fact, there are times at every retreat where my sisters and I are laughing so hard that we cannot speak and people are looking at us like.."really? what is so funny?" Its hard to get our "sister" humor unless you have been there like we have for pretty much...all our lives.

(pictured Lindsey, Heather, Leah, & our mother, Billie)

Anyway, I leave on Thursday and can hardly wait! So, I will be away from my computer for a few days but will have lots of fun things to show you when I get back. We will get back late Saturday night.

Its my twice a year fun with the girls, get away from it all, hang out in the country, smell the clean good country air, eat girlie foods (like quiche), be artsy crafty, sleep very little, laugh a whole lot kind of weekend...it rejuvenates my soul!

Beautiful is as beautiful does!

Make it a great week!

Heather