Robbi's M&Ms® Cookies

After reading all the other reviews, I made this using a 1/2 cup of room temp butter and 1/2 cup butter flavored shortening. They spread slightly on the pan, but not a whole lot, and they had a great flavor. Also, for my oven, a bake time of 8 1/2 minutes got them pretty well baked, and then I let them sit on the pan for an additional 4 minutes, finishing it up. Perfect. I also made a batch of Chocolate Mint M & M cookies by adding a 1/2 cup cocoa to the batter and using candy covered mint pieces. Heavenly.

WOW! I just made these cookies and they turned out great! I made them with butter only and they turned out just fine. Thanks for such a great recipie!

Oh My Gosh!!! I have been looking for a recipe like this for YEARS - just like the cookies I used to get at a shop when I was a kid. These were delicious - a little crispy, a little chewy. I used unsalted butter and next time may reduce the sugar a bit. I thought 3/4 c M&M added to the batter was a little light, so I added a full cup. Well, the mixer smashed them up so next time I will mix them in by hand. Also, will only put 3/4 c in as written; I realized that since you push M&Ms onto the cookies once they are on the sheet, you can control how many candies are in each cookie anyways. Definitely, absolutely a KEEPER!

These cookies are fantastic. There are a lot of people giving negative reviews for flat cookies. Unfortunately they aren't educated enough in baking to know when mostly brown sugar is used the cookies tend to be more flat. Which is why you need to use shortening to make up for that. Butter melts faster and therefore makes cookies spread more. I used half butter flavor shortening and half real butter simply for my own tastes not out of necessity. The other thing is chilling the cookie dough for at least 24 hours will enhance the flavor of the cookies and also make the dough easier to work with. Used my tablespoon cookie scoop to make even cookies. I also prefer my cookies slightly under baked so I only cooked them for 8 min. each. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for at least 3 min. otherwise they are too fragile to move. Then transferred to a cookie rack. Also keep in mind if cooling on the cookie sheet there will be carry over cooking which can make the cookies crispier. Thanks for a great recipe! Will be used over and over in this household.

I love this recipe. I do not use shortening. I use 2 sticks of butter and I also add semi-sweet chocolate chips. This makes for really good cookies! I have made these every week for my kids lunch and they love them. I am surprised at how many cookies it makes up! Just for fun...I made 1/8 tsp balls and it made cookies the size of those 100 calorie cookies. My two year old did not waste any cookie, because it was the right size! I counted 130 small cookies thats not counting the ones we ate from each batch out of the oven!

This recipe falls far short of spectacular! It tastes like store-bought cookies...so, not good. Try substituting butter for shortening - something I realized I should have done after I'd already made the fatal error of using shortening, which is rarely a good cookie ingredient...what was I thinking? KID NOTE: My son thinks they taste good, but he's a toddler and doesn't have the most refined palate as yet.

DH LOVED these cookies! I used butter instead of shortening. The cookies flattened out a lot after I took them out of the oven and were sitting on the pan so I added more flour (about 1/4 cup) to the batter and the rest turned out awesome!

I was looking for a traditional M&M cookie recipe and this is it! They were exactly what I was looking for and were delicious!! Because they taste like traditional M&M cookies, one might say they taste store bought but i can assure you they do not.

These were very good! I used a combo of shortening and butter, omitted the salt and increased the vanilla to 3/4 tsp. I was interested in trying others' recommendations of adding peanutbutter and oats, so I added some to the dough for the last dozen cookies. My husband liked the ones without the pb and oats, but I think I like the pb/oats ones better. I'd make these ones again!

Very quick and tasy cookie. Got many compliments when we took them to a school party.

Excellent cookies! Normally I would sub butter for the shortening, but this time I ran out of butter so I ended up using the shortening. I'm glad I did because these cookies are perfect as written! Soft and chewy, just like the cookies my grocery store's bakery sells. I did go ahead and add a handfull of milk chocolate chips too because we love chocolate in this house. Also, if you don't want the cookies to flatten out, you can try chilling the dough and cooling the cookie sheets in between batches. This recipe is a keeper, and I will always use shortening in it.

After reading a bunch of the comments on this recipe, I was concerned because my plan was to use unsalted butter and I was afraid of flat-cookie syndrome. Here are the tweaks we made: 2 sticks of unsalted butter, 3 cups of cake flour, and I leveled off the brown sugar and only added a scant half cup of the white sugar, and we refridgerated the dough in between batches. They came out perfect, and I'm using this same dough now for chocolate chip cookies and it coming out perfect as well.

I knew from the get-go that this would not be a cookie I'd be particularly fond of because of the higher ratio of brown sugar to white sugar. But I also knew that Hubs would like them because this produces a softer cookie. I really dislike flat chocolate chip cookies, so I was sure to refrigerate the dough awhile, until somewhat firm. Yes, they were soft - and for my tastes too sweet, the added sweetness of the M&Ms making them even more so. Hubs did give a nod of approval, just as I thought he would.

Theses cookies taste great! As other viewers have stated, I use butter instead of shortening. The directions for these cookies is minimal. I always mix all the wet ingredients and the sugars in one bowl and the dry in another. After cooking the first batch of my cookies I realized they were extremely flat. If you add 1 to 1 and 1/2 cups of flour they come out great! Good luck.

OMG, these are the best cookies EVER! The only change I made was using 1/2 cup butter flavored crisco and 1 stick of butter in place of the 1 cup shortening. I have made them 4 times and they turn out perfect every time. FABULOUS cookies....

Unlike many reviewers on this one, I made no changes. I used shortening as the recipe states. Many complain of flat cookies and they subbed butter for the shortening. Using butter will result in a flatter cookie. With the shortening, my cookies did not flatten into pancakes and my kids gobbled them up after school. I'm going to try sandwiching some ice cream in the middle of two :)

PERFECT AS IT IS, don't bother following advice on changing the recipe to make them "better" the original recipe works pefectly, the cookies look pretty and taste amazing.

I don't know what some of the other reviewers did, but these cookies did not come out salty at all. I love them, and I'm not a big cookie eater. My kids devoured them. I used shortening like the recipe stated and they were just as good as when I used butter. Thanks for the recipe!

I made this with 1/2 c. butter, 1/2 cup shortening, 1/2 tsp salt & 1 cup of dark chocolate M&M's (plus xtra for pressing in tops). They came out a little flat but they taste fine. I will make again for sure.

These are so easy to make (love that it's only 1 bowl!). I made these for 2 Christmas Cookie Exchanges I'm in this year and used the holiday M&Ms. I made 4 batches - which turned out about 21 1/2 dozen (258) small & medium sized cookies (I started out making them a little too big. They really only need about 1 & tsp. per drop for average size - they spread out more than I expected). Also, 1 average size bag of M&Ms is just over 1 and 1/2 cups so I just put that much in the the actual batter and use the remaining ones in the bag to top off the cookies as the recipe suggests. So - 1 bag per batch. Hope this helps others!

I don't think I've ever given a recipe on this site less than three stars, but I guess there's a first time for everything. This cookie recipe was a waste of ingredients - what a shame. I followed the recipe exactly. The only flavor in the cookie comes from biting a candy piece. Otherwise, the strongest flavor is shortening. I've had many a delicious cookie made with shortening before, but this one...man. Maybe it would help to use butter instead, but I don't think that would even solve the whole problem. Even my preteen daughters, who eat ANY sweet, took a few bites and said no thanks. Sorry, Robbi, but I just can't recommend this one.

Delicious! I made these for the youth at our church when we packed our shoeboxes this year. They loved them and I didn't bring any home! The only substitution I made is I used all margarine in place of the shortening. I also refrigerated my dough for about 45 minutes and lined my cookie sheets with parchment paper. Perfect!!! I am definitely adding this to my recipe box! Thanks! 12-20-10 Made these again for our Youth Christmas cantata. They were once again all eaten by our small group and I made over 70. They looked so good with the holiday M&Ms, too! :O) Nov 2011 Once again I made these for our OCC shoebox packing party. They quickly disappeared!!

Yum!

Quite good. I made think mine were on the small side, and so they turned out more crispy than I like. My oven was also a little hot. A tip on these cookies; it's hard to know when to take them out because at 9 min they are very soft. The trick is to put them on parchment paper and take them out even if you do think they are too soft at 9 min. Slide them off the parchment onto a cooling rack. They crisp up, I promise. I cut this recipe in half and got something like 45 cookies out of it. More than enough for me! Again, mine were small but I followed the recipe used a measuring teaspoon to ball out the dough like you would a melon.

These cookies are awesome!! Only thing I did different was I used 2 sticks of salted butter. I reduced the salt to 1/2 teaspoon and used 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. I cooked these at 375 for 8 minutes and left them on the pan for about 5 minutes after taking them out and they were perfect! Thanks for sharing the recipe. Will make many times in the future.

I took the advise of others and did half shortening, half butter and it turned out great. I also refrigerated the dough beforehand and put the cookie trays in the fridge before baking and between batches. They turned out beautifully.

Great cookies! I am often disappointed with cookie recipes (well, all recipes usually), but these were very good! Didn't change a thing.

This recipe is amazing! Edges are crispy and the inside is chewy, YUMMY!

This recipe was great. Rather than using shortening I used a cup of butter and then also added one small package of instant vanilla pudding to the flour mixture, as that also prevents spreading.......the cookies did NOT spread at all and came out perfectly.

I've made these before and remembered, after baking them, that I needed to reduce the sugar a bit. I use 1/4 cup white sugar and 1/2 tsp salt. My cookies don't come out flat using only butter; I whip butter and sugar first until fluffy, then add the eggs, then the vanilla. I add dry ingredients until just blended. One small bag of M&M's works great.

These cookies are wonderful! I only had butter flavored shortening on hand but it worked perfectly.

The cookies were great and a lot of fun to make. My kids especially liked loading up the cookies with the treats - we used chocolate chips, smarties, and M & Ms as well. They are really colourful and a great standby.

I wasn't all that impressed with these cookies. They taste decent, but I wish I could have just made me go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe and added some M&M's. I followed the advice of others and used butter in place of the shortening. Since I used butter I chilled the dough for a bit before baking. The cookies come out a bit on the thin and flat side. They are soft and chewy which I like, but despite the M&M's they just didn't result in a very pretty cookie.

Only changes I made was to use all butter and add 1/4 cup flour. Spread a little but not bad at all. Thanks for such a yummy, easy recipe!

Made the recipe as is stated, using butter flavored shortening instead of actual butter (as many other reviewers suggested). We loved them! They were tasty, delicious, and easy. This recipe will be a keeper!

We liked these. Added the PB and oats for fun. Kids ate them up.

I have made these twice. Once making recipe with shortening (as written) and once using butter. They look much prettier if you use the shortening, but taste better using the butter. Also I decrease the salt to 1/4 tsp.

These cookies came out perfectly! I used butter instead of shortening, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. (The recipe doesn't say to, but I buttered the cookie sheet before baking.)

These were good but not special enough to make again.

Great recipe! Easy to make, I had my 5 yr old son help put the candies into the cookies before popping them in the oven. Tastes just like m&m cookies I've had at bakeries. Recommend to everyone!

This has been my goto recipe for 10 plus years. My kids love them ans so does the husband. Easy recipe and quick.

Everyone at work loved these and my honey couldn't stop eating them! Good idea for the half-melted M&M's I had on hand. I switched the shortening for butter for a better taste, but it came out a little salty, so maybe unsalted butter next time.

Of course I used real butter. 1/2 salted and 1/2 unsalted. These spread a lot so I would recommend refriderating before baking - if you use butter.

I chose to replace the shortening w/ butter. I also used the mini m&m's in lieu of regular sized m&m's next time I might try a combo of butter and butter flavour shortening.

Used 2 sticks of butter as other reviewers suggested, and I followed the recipe otherwise. My 3-year-old helped to make these. They turned out yummy! I am updating this a few days later. These cookies became stale very quickly, and I even kept them in ziplock bags. I'll probably use another recipe next time.

I used butter instead of shortening. These cookies were really good. They're really flat, but my husband and I liked them!

These are really good. However, I don't ever use shortening in my cookies - only butter. That's the only reason I didn't rate it 5 stars.

disappointing...cookies turned out very flat and recipe was followed exactly as directed....

Decent cookie - tasty. But nothing to write home about. Would make again but not a 5 star cooky.

These cookies are amazing! My husband said they might be his new favorite cookie, and I'm always making different kinds of cookies. I took the advice of some reviewers and replaced the cup of shortening with 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup butter flavored shortening. When I tasted the batter I was nervous they would be too buttery, but they came out perfectly. They taste just like something you'd get from Mrs. Field's Cookies or the Cookie Company! I found 9 minutes to be a perfect baking time (find that to be true for most cookies), and then I left them on the cookie sheet for about 4 minutes. Thanks for the great recipe!

these are awesome! my mom and i loved these. i made these with low expectations..woooeee was i off!! i think i like these even better than regular choc. chip cookies. i made them with dark chocolate m&ms and butter, no shortening. perfect:) UPDATE: i now use mini chocolate chips with these when i make them to satisy my dad's unless chocolate cravings, either way they are delcious

I subbed butter for half the shortening and cut the salt in half. They came out really tasty!

I went with the other suggestions and used part butter and part shortening. I used more butter than shortening. Turned out very good and did not spead alot like others said. Will be making again.

Kid's loved them

Excellent -- don't substitute butter for shortening, I tried that the first time and they were a crumbly mess. Does anyone know any tricks to keep the M&Ms on top from cracking in the oven?

Really good cookies... a little on the crsipy side but great flavor. Used shortening first couple times made but going to use butter next time. Better to undercook a bit and let sit on the pan for a few min after out of the oven if you don't like a really crispy cookie.. Turnes out a bit softer that way.

Followed this recipe as it was written and had a great batch of cookies. Definitely a keeper!

Based on some of the other reviews, I used 1/2 cup butter flavored shortening and 1/2 cup butter and the results were just perfect. The cookies were soft and chewy. I'm not sure why some experienced dry-crumbly cookies...they may have not mixed the batter enough??? I can't wait to make these again...DELICIOUS!

These are wonderful, and they took me practically no time to make! And they do NOT taste anything like store-bought cookies, as some reviewers have stated. I scaled back the sugar and only used only 1 cup of regular white sugar with a tsp of molasses added (since I had no brown sugar), 1 cup room temperature butter instead of shortening, and added 1/2 tsp almond extract in addition to the vanilla. I used 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (I find it enhances sweets more so than regular flour), 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, and cut the salt back to 1/2 tsp. Next time I will omit the salt completely as they didn't really seem to need it at all. I mixed in the m&m's by hand so they wouldn't break, baked on lightly greased parchment paper for exactly 8 minutes, and they came out *perfect*. They spread out well but not too much, so they were just the right thickness and soft! After they cooled, I put them in a plasticware container with a slice of sandwich bread, and after several hours of sitting in the container, the cookies don't have that weird plastic container taste cookies and cakes seem to get from being stored in plasticware, and the cookies were just as soft and crumbly and perfect as when they came out of the oven. I will definitely make these again and again! =)

I made these for my friend's birthday potluck and everyone loved them. I thought the cookies would be sweet without the m&ms so I only put in a half cup in the batter and pushed one or two candies into the cookies after they were dropped on the pan. The only problem I had with these cookies were that they spread out a lot more than I thought they would. In my second batch I piled the drops up higher and spaced the cookies out on the pan and I came out with much prettier looking cookies.

I made these cookies today, and I loved how easy they were to make. The one thing I would do different though, is add the m&m's to each cookie after spooning them on the cookie sheet.I had to add more m&m's to the batter, since there didn't seem to be enough. I like how the cookies aren't overly sweet either.

As written, this recipe makes super flat cookies. Yes it appears that you may be able to follow some reviewers tips on helping with this issue. But as written, these are as flat as cookies can get. Taste is good, not great.

These were really yummy!! I used 1/2 shortening 1/2 butter. Very quick and simple recipe!!

Great recipe! I used 1/2 c butter and 1/2 c shortening. Cookies came out just right. Thanks for the recipe!

I have been searching for an M&M cookie that doesn't come out cakey and this is it!! I did use half shortening and 1/2 real butter. They are perfect. Great at Christmas with red and green M & M's!

As others had mentioned I also changed the recipe to 1/2 shortening and 1/2 butter. I also used a cookie scoop and then pressed the "ball" of dough into a bowl of m & m's and then flipped it over and put the m & m side up on a cookie sheet rather than mixing any in with the dough. It turned out great that way and make the cookies more festive since you can see all of the M&M's. Great basic M&M cookie recipe!

This is a really good cookie recipe, will definitely remake these over and over. There was nothing I would change about it, although we did use butter instead of shortening which I think made the dough slightly less thick. Very hard not to eat all the dough!

Excellent!!! I followed the recipe to a t and they turned out amazing. The own downfall, is that to say that this recipe makes 72 cookies--those must be pretty small cookies...I made a double batch and only got about 5 dozen...

I also made them with butter, and I had to add a little extra flour for the high altitude or else they we two soft and ran all over the pan. But they didn't last long my family loved them!

Very good cookie! I used butter flavored Crisco, and had to bake them a little longer than stated, but I think I made them bigger! I also didn't used as much salt, but that was my personal choice, I'm trying to cut salt from my diet. I baked some of the cookies on my Tupperware silicone pad and some on an air bake sheet. Both were easy to remove from the sheet and both cooked very nice. Only tip I have is from my Grandma, who says to beat the out of the sugar egg butter mix(cream for like 5 minutes in mixer), and once you add flour to only mix until combined!

I loved the simplicity of this! The whole batch was gone in a few hours!!!!!! Added some pecans for good measure :)

DO NOT MAKE THESE COOKIES! THEY DO NOT REMOVE FROM PAN!!! I needed to make cookies for a party,and I wanted to make an M&M cookies, so after googling, I came across this recipe. I tried it out and an hour later, I am stuck with several sheets of burned cookies, and even after greasing pans, these cookies still would not come off of the pan. This is such a dissapointment, that I made an account here just to review it. Now its 9:38, and I have NOTHING for the party tomorrow. Well, I know I'm not baking this again.

Great cookies! I used 1 cup of 'I can't believe it's not butter' in place of the shortening and omitted the salt because of this. I took advise of another reviewer and cooked the cookies for 8 1/2 to 9 minutes and let cool on a rack for about 4 minutes. Perfect. Thank you for the recipe.

I recommend using almost a whole bag of m&ms if you like chocolatey cookies.

The cookies were very crumbly and fell apart. (I used butter flavored shortening.) The girls in my cooking class whipped these up and though they ate them, they didn't rave. Won't make these again.

Just made the mix to refrigerate overnight to make for a party tomorrow. After reading many reviews I found an article that talked about fridging the mix for optimum results (taste tested and all) at 24-36 hours. Article said at 36 hours it made a huge difference because the flavors were given time to meld or whatever - I don't have more than 12 hours but thought I'd share. I use the tub of Smart Start buttery spread for cookies and it comes out fine as long as I refrigerate it first - otherwise it overspreads and gets "flat"; did 1/2 cup M&Ms and 1/2 cup ghirardelli milk chocolate chips - stirred it in, as one other reviewer warned that the mixer will break the M&M's. Thanks for all the tips, everyone! I learned something new tonight =P UPDATE: The first 2 batches of cookies I did turned out great! But because the mix was out of the fridge they became less firm and more gooey, so my last batch came out really flat. So make sure your mix is thoroughly fridged if you don't want them coming out flat (if you are like me and made the cookies with butter and no shortening). To avoid the cracked/melted looking M&Ms on top, when you take the cookies of the oven wait 2-3 minutes then put fresh M&Ms on top, pushing them in slightly. That's how you get the cookies to look good! I did 8 minutes per other people's recommendations but it was not enough - I'd say 9 minutes in the oven and then another 5 on the cookie sheet to cool is good.

I have made this recipe multiple times and it is always a favorite. they are usually gone before the day is done even when I make all 72! People drive to my house for these ( : I did try a very tasty alteration to this recipe, I added 3/4 of a cup of peanut butter to the dough ( with the butter) and I used reeses piecies instead of M&Ms, my husband said they were the best he has ever eaten. I urge you to give it a try. Thanks for the fantastic recipe!!

First of all, Im NOT a huge cookie person; however I made these for my kids and I fell in LOVE with the dough and instantly knew it would become my favorite recipe ever for cookies and I was right! I followed the advice of others and used a slick of butter and 1/2 C shortening. Followed everything else to a "t". I put dough in fridge for 30 min bc I had to run to pick kids up from school. The cookies are SO YUMMY! They are chewy and NOT flat at all. This will be my go-to recipe from now on. Right after trying the cookies, I was forced to make another batch. I knew these wouldn't last until my husband got home tonight.

delicious

I used 1/2 c shortening and 1/2 c butter. I also chilled the cookies for a bit before baking to prevent them from flattening out too much. They were great!

These were the best M&M cookies ever!! I loved the chewy/crispy texture. When I make M&M cookies, this will be the recipe I reach for! Total hit!

I'm not sure why this recipe has any low star ratings... the person who said the dough was crumbly obviously didn't do something right despite what they might say... there is no way if you follow the recipe exactly that will happen! My M&M's stayed in the dough, the dough was delicious and my cookies came out perfect!! I will def. make again, next time I might try adding some peanut butter at the request of my daughter!! Thank you for sharing, this recipe has a great rating for a reason!!

Yummy! These reminded my hubby of his Mom's cookies. I did use butter instead of shortening. It didn't hamper the recipe at all. "Santa" liked them,too!

Pretty good cookies. Followed some previous reviews and made a few tweaks, switched shortening for butter, skimped just a tad on the butter, salt, and sugars and added about a quarter cup of flour. Sadly the family's not a huge fan of m&m cookies to begin with cause of the crunchy candy part, and these were good but not outstanding, so they probably won't be made again sometime soon. They look very pretty with the Easter m&m's though. (:

SOOOOOOOOO GOOOD MY SON LOVES THEM GREAT COOKIE.. I am a baker and make cookies all the time at home and this is one of the best m&m cookie recipe I have found..:)

made these twice so far...they are amazing!!! one of the only cookies i have found that are perfectly crispy on the outside and perfectly chewy on the inside...mmm...if your batter is a bit runny (which mine were)just add a bit more flour to thicken it up (as told by previous reviewer).

Substituted butter for shortening because I avoid shortening when possible. They turned out wonderful! Perfect, not too flat. My family loves them and I am thinking I should have made a double batch. Definitely a keeper!

Although these are good cookies, mine were flat! I am not the best cookie baker. Not sure why since I have baked SO many and never had problems until recently. I am going to blame it on my oven however everything else seems to come out fine. I did use butter as suggested by others.

These were good. They were kind of puffy cookies, but still soft and good. I used half unsalted butter, half organic shortening.

UGHH OUR COOKIESBURNED ANDWE ARE SAD :[ this is our third attempt to make cookies and it failed the recipe said to leave them in there for 11min and we left them in there for 20min and they burned badly =[

was hoping for a better one.. they flattened out, didn't look like the picture.. not sure... will try them again i used butter instead of shortening, wonder if that was the problem and i put them in fridge thinking that would stop them from flattening out and it didn't change anything

Excellent cookies! I made them with Mini Eggs instead of M&Ms. I crushed/chopped the eggs to put in the dough, then placed a whole egg on top of each cookie. I didn't do anything else differently from the recipe except maybe a bit more vanilla. I also made them regular-size and got 30 cookies out of it - baked at 350 for about 15-17 minutes.

These were perfect! My kids had a blast making these with me, especially squishing the extra candies on the top. :-) Very easy recipe to work with. After reading the other reviews, we too added extra vanilla and substituted with butter. Tasted wonderful! We plan on using this recipe at the various seasons when you get special holiday colored M&M's.

these were good.... I did what some others did and used butter instead of shortening...although shortening does have its uses in my kitchen, in my cookies is one place it absolutely doesn't belong, especially that much!! to the reviewer who said these tasted like store bought, it's the shortening...they use it cause it's cheaper than butter

This is the only brown sugar based, chocolate chip type cookie recipe that I have ever found that did not spread flat as a pancake when baked, it was a little thicker and soft and chewy like store bakery cookies but tasted way better. I made a batch and just added the m&m's on top before baking then with the rest of the batter I stirred in white chips and dried cranberries, super yummy. You can do absolutely anything with this recipe and it freezes well. It's a keeper!

AMAZING!!!!!!!! Makes a ton. My family loves them. I used all shortening did not try the butter like others had said to try. Doesn't matter though they looked pretty and tasted GREAT!!!!!

I used butter flavored shortening and made exactly as directed. Turned out beautiful and tasty.

Made these today, they were yummy. Although I made a few changes for personal reasons. I used 2/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup white sugar, 3/4 cup margarine and 1/2 tsp salt. Chill for about 30 mins before baking. Will definitely be making these again.

OMG!! This was the recipe that I've been looking for! There is a local place tat sells M&M cookies that my family loves and these taste just like them! I was a little afraid to use shortening... as I was adding it in I couldn't believe I was feeding this to my kids but, I followed directions and the end result is an amazing cookie.