Sunflower Seed Butter Monster Cookies

Yes, another day, another cookie recipe. In case you haven't noticed, we work up a recipe first, and then bake it up. Meaning, as I am typing these first few words, we have not baked anything, yet. Since the easiest way to record what ingredients we decide upon is just to write them right into this blog, we are literally testing the recipes as we go. 

Monster cookies is a recipe the we have made for many, many years. At the beginning of the school year, we would make up a big batch of monster cookies, and freeze them. Then, when the kids came home from school, or play rehearsal, or football practice, there were always giant cookies to snack on. Of course, I ate many of them, myself.

So, this is our first test of gluten free Monster Cookies. In order to cut down on the number of eggs we are going through, we have decided to test out a version of this recipe using mayonnaise as a substitute for part of the eggs. 

We are also in disagreement, at the moment, as to how much vanilla to use. I always increase the amount of vanilla in a recipe, Natalie has taken that idea and doubled up again. She believes we should add a whole tablespoon of vanilla to this recipe. Considering we start with Mexican vanilla, which is a very strong vanilla, to begin with, that will make these very, very vanilla-ey, indeed. 

Also note, even though we replaced the butter in this recipe with a butter free blend, this is not a dairy-free recipe because of the M&Ms. 

 Sunflower Seed Butter Monster Cookies 

Ingredients:

1/3 cup dairy-free butter blend

6 tablespoons mayonnaise (yolk only type)

3 egg yolks

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups sunflower seed butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

4 1/2 cups oats

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup milk chocolate M&M's

1/2 cup dark chocolate M&M's

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

In large bowl, cream together butter, sugars, sunflower seed butter, egg yolks and mayonnaise until well blended and creamy. Add vanilla.

Mix in baking soda and oats. Mix on low until well incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips and milk chocolate and dark chocolate M&M's.

Using a large spoon, scoop dough onto ungreased cookie sheets. Cookies do not spread much so flatten slightly before baking. Bake at 350° for 12-14 minutes. Remove from oven and cool a couple of minutes. Move to wire racks.

During the first test run, we ended up with more granola, than cookies. so we added another egg yolk to our batter. The additional yolk helped hold the cookies together better and, as Natalie says, "Gives them more poof. We also added a teaspoon of salt to our original recipe. We are learning that sunflower seed butter cooks up much sweeter than peanut butter. The salt helps to cut that sweetness.

Our oven cooks on the hotter side, so 12 minutes is plenty long enough for our cookies to bake and still have a bit of moist gooey inside.

This is, by far, our best recipe, to date. And yes, I realize that there are not very many recipes on this blog, yet, There are many attempts we have not recorded, as of this time. And a few that will fade away forever. Blah! Sunflower Seed Butter Monster Cookies, however, are definitely worth the effort of baking up several more batches!