Hi Everyone!  Merry Christmas to you and yours!  I hope that you are all surviving the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.  It seems to me that it gets worse every year. Right before Thanksgiving I have the feeling of confidence in my ability to get everything done but the days speed by and here it is, almost upon us and I am nowhere close to being ready.  Yikes! I think that I just try to do too much, honestly. But, I want everything to be perfect for my family and friends. I want for the decorations to be beautiful and magical. I want for the gifts to be thoughtful and perfect. I want to make delicious treats to share with everyone.  But mostly, by this time, I just want to take a nap. Don’t get me wrong, I am still pursuing all that perfection. I’m no quitter. I will be working my tushy off until the big event arrives.

I do have some very special help.  Both of my sons, Cody and Alex, are excellent and willing candy makers.  They each have their specialties and happily make batches each year to share with family and friends.  And, let me tell you, their treats are much requested. I don’t know how they do it but they consistently make complicated candies successfully.  Cody is so easy-going about it that it frustrates me. If I had that same carefree approach the candies would never turn out. The caramels would be rock hard and the fudge would be grainy.  Alex is more strict at following his recipes but still amazes me when his divinity turns out perfect – every stinking time. That is so not fair. But I appreciate their help in the holiday kitchen.  It takes some of the load from my weary shoulders.

There are some treats that we make as a family, year in and year out, never fail.  Christmas wouldn’t be the same without these sweet delicacies. Peanut Butter Bonbons is normally a collaborative project.  I will be posting about those very soon. But, the most anticipated baking project each December is Monster Cookies. We all absolutely love them and have such a good time mixing the dough.  We all gather around the kitchen island and take turns adding ingredients and mixing the dough. Cody and Alex do most of the hard work of mixing and stirring (by hand toward the end of the process) the massive amount of dough.  Of course, we make sure to have our traditional Fay’s Twelve Days of Christmas dvd playing all the while. It cracks us up every year, even though we have seen it sooooo many times.

I have been making this recipe for about 30 or so years I would guess.  I remember that the first time that I made these by myself was my first year of marriage.  The recipe was in a community cookbook. I did not doubt the list of ingredients – big mistake.  There was a misprint in the book and it said 8 teaspoons of salt rather than 1. Holy Cow! Salty cookies.  So many salty cookies. I still use that same book each year but have made the correction. It is always a reminder to me to use my own judgement in cooking and baking.  Do not blindly follow.

As I said, this recipe makes a huge amount of dough and then a huge amount of cookies from that dough.  The original recipe said to make the cookies very large but I do a moderately large cookie. I find that if I make the cookies huge, people are unwilling to partake because it might be too much.  I’m not one of those people who is frightened by a huge cookie but I respect the wishes of those that are. The ingredient list is not long but the quantities of those ingredients might intimidate you.  It takes a dozen eggs, butter, brown sugar, white sugar, peanut butter, quick-cooking oats, vanilla, corn syrup, salt, M&M’s and chocolate chips. You need to use a very large bowl or dishpan for this project.  I have a deep plastic dishpan that is only used for making these cookies. You will need a hand mixer as well. I have one that we got for a wedding shower gift 31 years ago and it is still chugging along. I normally use my stand mixer these days, but this recipe requires something more mobile.  You will also need a very sturdy, large and long-handled spoon for the last portion of the mixing. The mixer may not be able to handle the whole process. When mine starts to bog down and gets hot we shut it off and my strong sons take over the mixing with the spoon. I have made sure that each of them now owns their own big spoon.  You just never know when you are going to need one.

Once the mixing is complete, plan on baking for several hours.  This makes about 20 dozen cookies depending on how large you make them.  I do place my pan of dough in the frig between dipping out batches. I have never baked part of the cookies and then chilled the remaining dough for later but I suspect that it would be fine to do so.

These cookies are a wonderfully satisfying treat.  They are chewy with just a slight crunch at the edges but soft and gooey in the middle.  The irresistable combination of chocolate, peanut butter and oats is out of this world good.

The ingredients are a dozen eggs, 2 pounds of brown sugar, 4 cups of white sugar, 1 Tablespoon of vanilla, 1 Tablespoon of white corn syrup, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 pound of butter, 3 pounds of peanut butter, 42 oz. quick oats, 1 pound of chocolate chips and 2 bags of M&M’s (at least a pound).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.