An easy high altitude recipe for iced oatmeal m&m cookies. The cookies are so soft and chewy, with sweet and crunchy m&m candies and vanilla icing. I decorated mine in red, green, and white for the Christmas holidays, but you can use seasonal m&ms to customize these for any holiday or time of year.
You might also love these recipes for oatmeal butterscotch cookies, oatmeal lace cookies, and brown butter oatmeal raisin cookies.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
No Mixer Needed. You’ll love that you don’t even need to use a mixer for this recipe, just a bowl and whisk.
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Molasses. You won’t need much, just a couple of teaspoons, but the molasses will enhance the flavor of the brown sugar and brown butter, as well as contribute to the soft, chewy texture of the cookies.
- Oats. Use old-fashioned rolled oats, not steel cut or quick oats.
- M&Ms. Pick any color for the season or holiday!
Instructions
Cookie Dough
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Continue to cook the butter, swirling the pan occasionally, for about 5-10 minutes, until nutty, light golden brown solids form at the bottom of the pan and the butter is very fragrant. Pour the browned butter into a large bowl, and let cool for 30 minutes at room temperature.
- To the butter, add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and molasses, and whisk vigorously for 1-2 minutes, until thick and lightened in color.
- With a small food processor or Ninja, pulse the oats until they are finely ground. In a bowl, combine the ground oats with the flour, salt, and baking soda.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir until the dough is starting to come together, but still has some floury bits.
- Add one cup of the m&ms (roughly crushed, if you like), and stir everything into a dough.
- Use a large cookie scoop/ice cream scoop with a release lever (about 2 1/2 – 3 tablespoons) to scoop the dough into 20 portions, dropping the dough balls onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper.Don’t roll the dough balls smooth with your hands – you want the surface to be a little rough and craggy. Just ever so slightly flatten the tops of the dough balls with your hand. Cover the dough with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Bake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place the chilled dough balls 3 inches apart on the baking sheet (refrigerating the rest of the dough balls until ready to bake them). Bake the cookies for 9 minutes, just until barely set in the middle.
- When you take the pan out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter (one that’s larger than the circumference of the baked cookies), and immediately “scoot” it around the hot cookies. This pulls in any uneven edges to make perfectly round and beautiful cookies. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
- Continue baking the rest of the cookies, and let them cool completely before icing. You can speed up the cooling by placing the baked cookies in the refrigerator for a few minutes.
Icing
- In a shallow bowl, combine the powdered sugar and meringue powder. Add the vanilla and milk, and whisk gently until smooth, thick and drizzly.
- To dip the cookies, turn a cookie over so that the top is facing down. Holding the cookie by the edges, lightly dip it in the icing, shake off the excess, and set on a baking sheet. Repeat with all the cookies.Note: You don’t want to fully submerge the top of the cookies in the icing. Just lightly dip them so that the rough bumps and ridges on top of the cookies catch the icing, with plenty of gaps in between.
- The icing will set and dry to the touch within a few minutes, and will stay a little soft underneath. Let dry for about an hour before storing the cookies in an airtight container.
- As you ice the cookies, you can decorate the tops with the remaining 1/2 cup of m&ms (whole or crushed) – sprinkle them on top of the cookies right after dipping them in the icing, before the icing sets.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
Store leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.
If you choose to make these without the icing, I’d suggest using the extra 1/2 cup of m&ms to decorate the tops of the cookie dough balls before baking the cookies.
For red and green M&Ms, I used a 9-ounce bag of the “holiday mint” M&Ms, using a little over half in the cookie dough, and the rest to decorate the tops of the cookies. The peppermint flavor of the candy was unexpected in an oatmeal cookie, but delicious!
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High Altitude Oatmeal M&M Cookies
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Large Cookie Scoop with Release Lever (2 1/2 – 3 tbsp capacity)
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- ⅔ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp molasses (Grandma's old fashioned)
- 2 cups old-fashioned (rolled) oats
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup red and green "holiday" m&ms
Icing
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
- ½ tbsp meringue powder
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 3 ½ tbsp whole milk
- ½ cup red and green "holiday" m&ms
Instructions
Cookie Dough
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Continue to cook the butter, swirling the pan occasionally, for about 5-10 minutes, until nutty, light golden brown solids form at the bottom of the pan and the butter is very fragrant. Pour the browned butter into a large bowl, and let cool for 30 minutes at room temperature.
- To the butter, add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and molasses, and whisk vigorously for 1-2 minutes, until thick and lightened in color.
- With a small food processor or Ninja, pulse the oats until they are finely ground. In a bowl, combine the ground oats with the flour, salt, and baking soda.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir until the dough is starting to come together, but still has some floury bits.
- Add one cup of the m&ms (roughly crushed, if you like), and stir everything into a dough.
- Use a large cookie scoop/ice cream scoop with a release lever (about 2 1/2 – 3 tablespoons) to scoop the dough into 20 portions, dropping the dough balls onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper.Don't roll the dough balls smooth with your hands – you want the surface to be a little rough and craggy. Just ever so slightly flatten the tops of the dough balls with your hand.Cover the dough with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Bake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place the chilled dough balls 3 inches apart on the baking sheet (refrigerating the rest of the dough balls until ready to bake them). Bake the cookies for 9 minutes, just until barely set in the middle.
- When you take the pan out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter (one that's larger than the circumference of the baked cookies), and immediately "scoot" it around the hot cookies. This pulls in any uneven edges to make perfectly round and beautiful cookies. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
- Continue baking the rest of the cookies, and let them cool completely before icing. You can speed up the cooling by placing the baked cookies in the refrigerator for a few minutes.
Icing
- In a shallow bowl, combine the powdered sugar and meringue powder. Add the vanilla and milk, and whisk gently until smooth, thick and drizzly.
- To dip the cookies, turn a cookie over so that the top is facing down. Holding the cookie by the edges, lightly dip it in the icing, shake off the excess, and set on a baking sheet. Repeat with all the cookies.Note: You don't want to fully submerge the top of the cookies in the icing. Just lightly dip them so that the rough bumps and ridges on top of the cookies catch the icing, with plenty of gaps in between.
- The icing will set and dry to the touch within a few minutes, and will stay a little soft underneath. Let dry for about an hour before storing the cookies in an airtight container.
- As you ice the cookies, you can decorate the tops with the remaining 1/2 cup of m&ms (whole or crushed) – sprinkle them on top of the cookies right after dipping them in the icing, before the icing sets.
Notes
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