Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chunks and M&Ms

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These Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chunks and M&Ms are flourless and gluten-free. The recipe is so easy, packed with chocolate chunks and Valentines M&Ms and are perfect for your Valentines Day dessert! Show the love by sharing these cookies with your friends! (They’re also great to eat any day of the year!)

Say hello to your new favourite Valentines Day Cookies!

I love how you can turn literally any dessert into a “Valentines Day dessert” just by changing up the ingredient colour scheme. Normally I make these Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies using the regular coloured M&Ms. You know the typical green, red, orange, yellow, blue, and brown ones. Those colours are all fine and good, but replacing those with the Valentines M&Ms brings these cookies to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL. Of course taste-wise they’re the still the same (delicious and amazing) but I just love the look that the red, pink, and white M&Ms give these cookies. They’re so pretty and just so…so…me. (Anyone who knows me knows that pink is my favourite colour ever!)

On a side note, can I just say as a Canadian living in the US, I constantly struggle with the question of how should be spelling “colour” and “favourite”? Do I leave my Canadian-ness behind and ditch the “u’s” altogether because I’m in the US and should adopt the all-American ways? Or do I choose to keep the “u’s” because I’m still technically a Canadian citizen? I’ve lived here for almost four years and often just switch back and forth because I still can’t make up my mind–and probably never will.

An Easy Recipe With Ingredients You Probably Already Have in Your Pantry.

These Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chunks and M&Ms are so easy to make, you guys! They require 11 ingredients in total, and I bet you 9 out of 11 of these ingredients are already sitting in your pantry just dying to be used and made into something beautifully delicious.

I’m talkin’ butter, salt, sugar, peanut butter, oats, eggs, ect! I’d be super impressed if you actually had 11/11 of these ingredients. You mean you already have Valentines Day M&Ms AND Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks in your cupboards?! That’s amazing. What DON’T you have in there? …Can I borrow your pantry for the rest of my life?

I love oats so much! I think it’s the chewy texture that entices me so. I’d choose  an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie over just a regular old chocolate chip cookie ANY DAY because of that wonderful added element of chewiness. Wouldn’t you agree?! Who’s with me?!

These Cookies Are Flourless AND Gluten-Free

One thing that’s awesome about these Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies is that they’re FLOURLESS. That’s right! There are zero grams of flour in these cookies. (Should I be changing my website to “Flourless & Floral”? Hmm…things to think about. Haha!) With no flour, this means that depending on the type of rolled oats you use, this recipe is totally Gluten-Free!

I use Quaker Old Fashioned Rolled Oats, and on their website they state that oats are naturally gluten-free, but stray grains can be introduced during harvesting and transport, so there’s no guarantee that they’re 100% gluten-free. But there are brands like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Old Fashioned Rolled Oats that can offer you a 100% gluten-free guarantee. The choice is yours.

Do you have a peanut-allergy?

If you’re allergic to peanuts and can’t even go near peanut butter, fear not. I have a similar cookie recipe to this one that’s peanut-free! Check out my Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe here–just follow the recipe exactly, and feel free to use the Valentines Day M&Ms as one of your add-ins! 🙂

Tips To Baking These Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chunks and M&Ms.

This recipe for Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies yields just under 4 dozen cookies, 45 cookies to be exact. They freeze fabulously and make great gifts for friends, family, and co-workers if you’re willing to share! But if you’d rather just start off small go ahead and halve the recipe.

(Half? Halve?–what’s the proper word?) If you do halve the recipe, because the full recipe requires 3 eggs, use one full egg, and then whisk another egg in a bowl adding half of that egg mixture to the recipe. (Because half of 3 is 1.5. Makes sense?)

Cream Together The Butter and Sugars.

So to start these cookies, in a large bowl you cream together your room-temperature butter and your sugars. (Also, I’ve officially found my favourite brand of butter: Kerrygold. It’s seriously the best tasting butter ever–made by grass-fed cows in the pastures of Ireland, it’s rich, creamy, and has the most beautiful golden colour. )

Mix for 3-5 minutes until butter is evenly broken up, into small crumbles. Next you mix in your eggs and vanilla extract; then you add your natural and creamy peanut butter, baking soda and salt. Mix mix mix!

All The Pretty Toppings.

Remove your bowl from your stand mixer, or put away your hand mixer. Pour in those beautiful oats, those delicious chocolate chunks, and those pretty-coloured M&Ms and stir by hand until everything is evenly combined. The best part about these cookies is that you don’t even have to use chocolate chunks or M&Ms. You could try nuts or mini chocolate chips!

Or something that I’ve been tempted to try is putting pretzels in these… Mmm! Make them your own. But honestly if you follow this recipe exactly, you will be GLAD you did. They’re just so good! Line your baking sheets with parchment paper (I pretty much ALWAYS use parchment paper for all of my baking and roasting, mostly because it bakes more evenly and the clean-up is a million times easier.

The Importance of Cookie Scoops.

Using a Tablespoon-sized cookie scoop, drop 9 cookie dough balls onto each baking sheet. Cookie scoops are LIFE you guys. I went like 25 years without a cookie scoop and I never want to go another second without one. They ensure that your cookies will be uniformly sized, and they’re way less messy than using a regular spoon.

But it doesn’t stop with cookies; cookie scoops are also a great help with scooping cupcake batter into liners. Or making watermelon balls or ice cream balls. If you don’t have one already, I would recommend getting an OXO medium-sized scoop!

The Secret To Good Lookin’ Cookies…

This next step is totally optional, but in my opinion SO visually worth it! Take any leftover chocolate chunks you may have, roughly chop them so they’re not so square looking, and take any leftover M&Ms you may have and press one or two of them into the tops of the cookie dough balls. I LOVE this step because after they bake the M&Ms and chocolate chunks lay nicely on top and you can see them instantly, rather than only getting a glimpse of an M&M already baked into the cookie. You eat with your eyes so it’s a total win.

Bake these cookies for 11 minutes in a 350 degree F oven and let the cookies sit in the pans for a wee bit before transferring them to a cooling rack. They are a tad fragile when they’re warm and they need some time to set properly! And that’s it! I like to store mine in a ziplock bag or tupperware container on the counter, or as I mentioned before, they freeze beautifully too!

I hope you guys all have a fabulous Valentines Day! For me, Valentines Day is just like any other day of the week/month/year so I won’t be doing anything out of the ordinary. But I do appreciate the love and of course all the pretty pinks and reds that this holiday brings. I’ll take any excuse to put more PINK into my baking. 😉

Thank you friends and happy baking!!

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Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chunks and M&Ms

These Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chunks and M&Ms are flourless and gluten-free. The recipe is so easy, packed with chocolate chunks and Valentines M&Ms and are perfect for your Valentines Day dessert!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Chocolate, Flourless Cookies, Gluten Free, Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies, Valentines Day Dessert

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 11 minutes

Total Time 26 minutes

Servings 45 Cookies

Author Jennifer Preston / Flour & Floral

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup Brown Sugar packed
• 1 cup White Sugar
• 1/2 cup Butter softened to room temperature, I like to use a high quality brand like Kerrygold
• 3 Eggs large
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 1/2 cups Peanut Butter natural, and creamy are preferred
• 2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Salt
• 4 1/2 cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
• 1/2 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunks (optional: +extra for topping)
• 1/2 cup M&Ms regular or Valentines! (optional: +extra for topping)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer, in a large bowl cream together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until butter is evenly broken up. (3-5 minutes.)

3. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract.

4. Add peanut butter, baking soda, and salt and mix until evenly combined.

5. Remove bowl from stand mixer, add oats, chocolate chunks, and m&ms and stir by hand until evenly combined.

6. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Using a Tablespoon-sized cookie scoop, drop 9 cookie dough balls onto each baking sheet, evenly spaced apart.

7. Optional: Take any leftover chocolate chunks that you may have, roughly chop them. Press them plus any leftover M&Ms onto the tops of the cookie dough balls. (This makes the cookies look so good after they bake because you can see the ingredients then!)

8. If your oven space allows, place the two baking sheets side by side on the middle oven rack. If you don't have enough space, bake one sheet at a time. Bake for 11 minutes.

9. Remove from oven and allow cookies to rest on sheets for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack with a spatula.