NJPerkins

Uncle Marv's Mammoth Cookies

These huge, sweet cookies are not for the faint-hearted!  Crammed with all the right cookie stuff and formed with an ice cream scoop, these babies will put the Holiday into any season!

• 2 cups shortening (2 Crisco "sticks")
• 1/2 cup softened butter (1 stick)
• 3 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4 tsp vanilla
  ---- cream the above together ----
• 5 cups flour
• 3 tsp salt
• 1 Tbl baking soda
• 1 Tbl baking powder
• 4 tsp cinnamon
  ---- add and mix in the above ----
• 1 12 oz bag of mini M&Ms
• 1 12 oz bag of semi sweet morsels
  ---- fold in the sweet treats last ----

Mammoth Cookies - Christmas Version

Instructions

This is a nice big batch of cookies that is easily shared with family, friends and workplace, while still leaving plenty at home!  Faces usually light up at the sight of them.  The key to their size is using an ice cream scoop to lay them out for baking.  Using 2 or 3 cookie sheets helps to move the process along efficiently.

• I use a KitchenAid mixer with the mixer/beater blade on fairly high speed to cream the moist ingredients together.  You can use whatever suits you to accomplish the task.
• Then, gradually add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly (at a somewhat lower speed) until you have a nice, soft, cookie dough consistency.  Try to avoid spooning massive amounts directly into your mouth.
• Once thoroughly mixed, add in the 2 bags of sweet treats.  Mix just enough to distribute the candy evenly throughout the mix.
• Using an ice cream scoop, evenly space about 8 cookies on a large cookie sheet and for maximum "throughput", load up 2 more cookie sheets in a similar manner.
• Bake, 1 sheet at a time, in a 375° oven for 9-13 minutes to the degree of doneness you prefer for your cookies.  I usually pull them when they just start to brown which makes for a fairly moist cookie.
• Allow them to cool about 10 minutes on the sheet before moving them to cooling racks.
• Once cooled another 10 minutes or so on the racks, you can begin stacking them on a large platter for the final cooling.
• If you work 3 cookie sheets, the timing is such that you will be staggering cookies from oven, to cooling sheet, to cooling racks, to platter and pretty soon your 40 or so Uncle Marv's Mammoth Chocolate Chip Cookies will be done!  Woo-Hoo!

Variations on the Theme!

The recipe above is for traditional Uncle Marv's Mammoth Chocolate Chip Cookies, but we also have a few adjustments that can be made for variety and/or special occasions!  Try these:

• Use red and green peanut M&Ms in place of mini M&Ms around Christmas Time.

• Add 1/4 cup or more of Cocoa to the dry ingredients and substitute Chocolate Chunks and 1 or 2 14 oz bags of flaked coconut to create Coconut Chocolate Chunk cookies.

• Around Halloween, replace one of the cups of sugar with brown sugar, and add 1.5 tsp of ginger, 1 tsp of nutmeg, and 1/2 tsp cloves to the mixture.  If you have canned or frozen pumpkin or winter squash pulp, that can be added for further Halloween flavor (you may have add a little flour in that case).  Finally, replace the mini M&Ms with the orange and black peanut M&Ms that are usually around during Halloween.  Voila!  Frighteningly delicious cookies!

Take a slew of these cookies to your next pot luck office party and I guarantee you will get raves!