Christmas M&M Sugar Cookies -- When the House Already Smells Like Gingerbread, You Bake Something Bright for the Kids

December. The Christmas decorations came down from the attic, as predicted, on Wednesday. Helen supervised. I carried. This is the system: she tells me what to bring down, I bring it down, she tells me where to put it, I put it there, she moves it three inches to the left, I pretend not to notice. The system has been in place for thirty-six years and functions perfectly.

The decorations are modest. A wreath on the door — real, not artificial, made by Helen from balsam fir she cuts from the tree line behind the sugarhouse. Candles in the windows — electric, because Helen is a nurse and open flames near curtains make her nervous. A small tree in the living room corner, a balsam fir from the lot on Williston Road, decorated with ornaments that span our entire marriage: the glass ball from our first Christmas in 1980, Teddy's handprint ornament from kindergarten, a moose made of clothespins that Anna made last year, and at the top, a wooden star that my father carved sometime in the 1960s, smooth and simple and exactly right.

I made gingerbread. Not the fancy kind — not a house, not cookies with royal icing, not anything that requires decorating skills I don't possess. Just gingerbread. Dark, dense, spicy, baked in a square pan and cut into squares and eaten warm with whipped cream. My mother's recipe: molasses, butter, sugar, egg, flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, and hot water stirred in at the end, which makes the batter thin and alarming and you think you've ruined it but you haven't. The hot water is the secret. The batter knows what it's doing.

The gingerbread fills the house with a smell that is December — there's no other word for it. If you could bottle the smell of gingerbread baking in a Vermont farmhouse in early December with a woodstove going and snow on the ground and a dog asleep on the rug, you'd have something that people would pay money for. I give it away for free. The blog readers seem to appreciate that.

I wrote about gingerbread for the blog this week. Kept it simple — the recipe, a few notes, the suggestion that you eat it warm because cold gingerbread is just spice cake with regret. Seven people wrote to say they were making it this weekend. One person asked if they could substitute honey for molasses. No. You cannot. Gingerbread without molasses is bread with ginger, which is a different thing entirely. Standards matter. Even in December. Especially in December.

The tree is lit. The house smells like balsam and ginger. Frost is wearing an antler headband that Helen put on him. He is tolerating it. Barely.

The gingerbread is always for the house — for the smell of it, for the warmth of it, for the memory of my mother’s kitchen that lives somewhere in that combination of molasses and cloves. But every December, once the tree is lit and the ornaments are hung and the woodstove is doing its job, I find myself wanting something brighter for the cookie tin — something that looks the way the living room feels right now, with the lights on and the dog in his antler headband and Helen moving things three inches to the left. These Christmas M&M Sugar Cookies are that thing. Simple, cheerful, the kind of cookie that doesn’t ask anything of you except that you show up and enjoy December.

Christmas M&M Sugar Cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar, plus extra for rolling
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups holiday red and green M&Ms

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Whisk dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar together with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add egg and vanilla. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until fully combined and smooth.
5. Combine wet and dry. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, mixing just until a soft dough forms. Do not overmix.
6. Fold in M&Ms. Stir in 1 cup of the holiday M&Ms by hand with a wooden spoon or spatula, reserving the remaining 1/2 cup for topping.
7. Portion the dough. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough and roll each into a ball. Roll each ball lightly in granulated sugar and place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
8. Top with M&Ms. Press 3 to 4 of the reserved M&Ms onto the top of each dough ball so the colors show after baking.
9. Bake. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, until the edges are just set and the centers look barely done. Do not overbake — the cookies will firm up as they cool.
10. Cool. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 142 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 21g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 75mg