In honor of eating seasonally, I made a special treat for back-to-school. What’s in season now? M&Ms, of course! In particular, the “Jack’s Gems” ones that are being discounted as the associated pirate movie wanes in popularity. :^)

I have an M&M cookie recipe but results were not stellar the last time I made it, so I turned elsewhere. Also, I wanted to make bar cookies since it would be quicker. I looked at the bar cookies chapter in one of my cookbooks, but didn’t find any chocolate chip bars recipes to adapt, so I turned to the back of the toll house morsels bag and adapted that.

M & M Bar Cookies

1 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3 large eggs (mine were local! :^)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups all-purpose white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cup M&M candies

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 15×10 inch jelly-roll pan (or if you don’t have one, combine a 9×12 cake pan with a bread loaf pan).

Beat sugar and butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Gradually beat flour mixture into creamed mixture. Stir in the chocolate bits. Spread into prepared pan(s).

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until top is golden brown. Cool in pan or wire rack.

Changes I made:

1. The original recipe only calls for white flour, but I didn’t have quite enough so I topped it off with wheat flour. It adds a nice touch (although at such a low percentage, it probably doesn’t improve the nutritional value much!).

2. The recipe calls for 2 cups of chocolate chips. I only put in 1 3/4 cups of Ms, but that seemed like too much, so I would try 1 1/2 next time.

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Here’s a picture of the boys on the first day of school. C-boy is entering 3rd grade, Z-boy is entering 1st, and T-boy will start going to a co-op preschool next week. And yes, they got some of these cookies in their lunchboxes today!