Chocolate Chip M&M’S Cookies

The solar eclipse happened this week. August 21, 2017. Nashville was in the path of totality, and for two minutes and forty seconds the sun disappeared and the sky went dark and the temperature dropped and the birds went quiet and the entire city stood outside and looked up.

I was at the clinic. We stopped everything. Dr. Whitfield — Dr. Whitfield, the woman who never stops, who barely acknowledges holidays, whose highest compliment is silence — she stopped clinic and took the entire class outside. We stood in the parking lot of Nashville State Community College wearing cardboard eclipse glasses that made us look like dental hygiene robots and we watched the moon eat the sun. And for two minutes, nobody was a student or a professor or a patient or a waitress or a single mother or anyone at all. We were just humans, looking up, watching something impossible happen.

I thought about Earline. I don't know why — maybe because eclipses make you think about the people who watched the last one, and the one before that, and all the way back to the first person who looked up and saw the world go dark and didn't understand but still watched. Earline would have watched. Earline would have stood in her yard in Alabama with her cast iron skillet still warm from breakfast and looked up and said nothing, because some things don't need words. They need eyes.

Chloe's school watched the eclipse too. She came home and said, "Mama, the sun went away and then it came back." Yes, baby. That's what the sun does. It goes away and it comes back. Not everything does. But the sun does. The sun always comes back.

Jayden was napping at Mama's during the eclipse. He missed the whole thing. Mama watched it from her porch. She called me afterward and said, "Well, that was something." THAT WAS SOMETHING. Lorraine Mitchell's review of a once-in-a-generation celestial event: "That was something." I love this woman.

I made sun-shaped sugar cookies for the kids after school. Not because I'm crafty — because Chloe asked for "eclipse cookies" and I am a mother who says yes to eclipse cookies even when she has three chapters of community health to read and a board exam review to finish. I used a round cookie cutter (the only one I own) and added rays with a butter knife. They looked like suns designed by someone having a bad day. Chloe said they were "perfect." Jayden ate three without looking at the shape. We ate eclipse cookies and talked about the sun and the moon and how sometimes things go dark and then the light comes back. That's not just astronomy. That's everything I know about life.

The round cookie cutter and the butter-knife rays were a one-time thing — a mama improvising at 4 p.m. on eclipse day with flour on her scrubs and community health notes open on the counter. But if I’d had a little more time and a little more sleep, these Chocolate Chip M&M’S Cookies are exactly what I would have made: bright, kid-approved, impossible to mess up, and colorful enough to feel like a celebration of something rare. Use the yellow and orange M&M’S if you want the sun. Use the dark ones if you want the moon. Chloe would say they’re perfect either way.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 11 min | Total Time: 26 min | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup M&M’S candies, plus extra for pressing on top

Instructions

Heat the oven. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract until fully combined.
Add the flour mixture. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, mixing just until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Fold in the mix-ins. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the chocolate chips and M&M’S until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
Scoop the dough. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Press a few extra M&M’S onto the tops of each dough ball so they’re visible after baking.
Bake. Bake one sheet at a time for 9—11 minutes, until the edges are just set and lightly golden but the centers still look slightly underdone. They will firm up as they cool.
Cool on the pan. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. This keeps them chewy in the center.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Chip M&M’S Cookies — Eclipse Cookies for the Kids Who Watched the Sun Come Back