Fun and patriotic Red White and Blue M&M Cookies are delicious, easy to make, and perfect for the 4th of July.

Closeup on a bunch of Red White and Blue M&M Cookies lying flat on a white serving platter in front of a white background and 4th of July decorations.

Looking for an easy patriotic dessert to take your 4th of July picnic … look no further.  These Red White and Blue M&M Cookies are perfect and super tasty. The mixture of the brownie-like cookie with the crunchy M&M’s is amazing. And what any easy Patriotic dessert to bring to your 4th of July or Memorial Day party! They are both chewy and chocolatey and the Red, White, and Blue Holiday Mix M&M’s are the perfect colorful Independence Day addition.

Closeup on a white mixing bowl filled with Chocolate Cookie dough and a white wooden spoon.

Step 1:  To make the chocolate cookie dough, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder and set aside.  Cream together the butter and white and brown sugars.  Mix in the eggs and vanilla. Finally, add in the dry ingredients 1 cup at a time.

Baking Instructions

Collage image showing the steps required for pressing the Red White and Blue M&M's onto the chocolate cookies.

Step 2:  Roll the dough into a ball and place it on the cookie sheet.
Step 3: Add the Red White and Blue M&M’s.  These are found in a special holiday mix of M&M’s that are available from May to July.  But you could also use the Red and Blue M&M’s from a regular bag of M&M’s and then buy a bag of white M&M’s.  You can find White M&M’s at most candy stores and at Party Supply stores like Party City.  Press some of the left-over Red White and Blue M&M’s onto the cookie dough ball. This will allow some of the colorful M&M’s to show up on the top of the baked Red White and Blue Chocolate Cookies.
Step 4: Bake the cookies in a 350-degree oven for 9-11 minutes. Some of the M&M’s will crack during the backing process. Don’t worry. It just adds character to the cookie!

Expert Tips and FAQs

Use Room Temperature Ingredients

Both the eggs and the butter should be at room temperature which will help your cookies turn out lighter and fluffier.  For the eggs, room temperature simply means not cold out of the refrigerator. If you forget to take the eggs out before you start making cookie dough you can put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to warm them up.  The butter also needs to be softened to room temperature which means if you touch it you should leave an indentation on the stick of butter. Do not use butter that has been over-softened or melted.  If that happens you should use a different stick of butter or put it back into the refrigerator to let it set up.  We have a whole post about How to Soften Butter, click here if you need more information on how to do that.

Do you need to use a Mixer?

Yes. In our opinion, you need some kind of a mixer to make a good cookie dough. A stand mixer, while expensive, is a great investment if you believe you have a lot of homemade baked goods in your future. An electric hand-mixer also works well and you can probably find one for around $20. You can hand mix cookie dough in a pinch (which is how we did it growing up), but you will really have to use a lot of muscle to cream the butter and sugar and eggs properly.

Cookie Dough Mixing Tips

Creaming the butter, sugar and then mixing the eggs in is the most important part of the cookie dough mixing process. Creaming is when you fully incorporate the butter and sugar together and add some much needed air to the dough. We recommend creaming the butter and sugar for 2 minutes on medium-high speed and then mixing the butter/sugar/eggs for another 3 minutes at the same speed. Once you add the flour, you want to mix the dough as little as possible. Mix it too much and you will get tough cookies. Mix in the flour on low speed and continue mixing ONLY until the dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough. Make sure you scrape down the sides and the bottom to make sure all the flour has gotten mixed in.

Prepping the Cookie Sheet

We always line our cookie sheets with a piece of parchment paper, it keeps the cookie from sticking to the sheet and from over-browning. You can find parchment paper either in rolls or in pre-cut sheets in most grocery stores, and we highly recommend it. Ideally, you should use at least 2 cookie sheets when baking cookies. You don’t want to add the raw cookie dough to a cookie sheet that is hot out of the oven. The dough will start baking even before you get it in the oven.

Use an Ice Cream Scooper or a Scale to get perfectly sized cookies

Cookie size is a matter of personal taste. The important part is making them all the same size so they bake evenly. We like a good-sized cookie, so we use a medium-sized cookie dough scoop that makes a portion that has approximately 2 tablespoons of cookie dough. You can also pull out your food scale and measure the cookie dough.

Oven Tips

Everyone’s oven is different. We recommend starting with a test bake with a single cookie to help you hone in on the exact baking time for your oven. You should set your timer for 2 minutes less than whatever the recipe recommends. Once the timer goes off, open up the oven and see how your cookie is baking. Make corrections accordingly. Our oven has a hot spot in the back so we always rotate the cookie sheet half-way through the baking time to get a more even bake. Although this may seem like an unnecessary step, it is better to do this then burn a whole tray of cookies.

Storage/Freezing Tips

Cookies should always be stored in an airtight container.  They should be completely cooled before storing them. We usually add a layer of parchment paper between each row of cookies in our plastic container.  Cookies stored at room temperature should stay fresh for 3-4 days. You can also keep them in the refrigerator and that extends their freshness for up to a week. If you need them to last longer, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. You can pull them out of the freezer and leave them on the counter for 1 hour and they will be ready to eat.

Closeup on a tall stack of Chocolate Red White and Blue M&M Cookies sitting on a white linen in front of a white background.

Other 4th of July Desserts You Will Love

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Red White and Blue M&M Cookies

Yield 3 dozen cookies
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 11 minutes
Total Time 26 minutes

Fun and patriotic Red White and Blue M&M Cookies are delicious, easy to make, and perfect for the 4th of July.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Butter (Sweet Cream, Salted, Softened to Room Temperature)
  • 3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
  • 2/3 cup Brown Sugar (packed)
  • 2 Large Eggs
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 2 1/4 Cups All-PurposeFlour
  • 2/3 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon Salt
  • 1 Bag Red White and Blue Holiday M&M Mix

Instructions

  1. Mix flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder and set aside.
  2. Cream butter and sugars.
  3. Mix in Eggs and Vanilla.
  4. Fold in dry ingredients.
  5. Roll dough into balls.
  6. Press a handful of Red White and Blue M&M's onto the top of the cookie dough ball.
  7. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 9-11 minutes.

Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!