These kitchen sink cookies are filled with everything Santa & Mrs Claus would be baking with in their home kitchen — Christmas m&ms, marshmallows, pretzels, and most importantly… chocolate. These are the perfect cookie to bake for your next cookie swap, Christmas party, or just for your family this holiday season.
Santa’s Kitchen Sink Cookies
Nothing says Christmas like these kitchen sink cookies I think Santa & Mrs. Claus would be baking on Christmas Eve. I like to imagine that Santa looooves marshmallows, pretzels, and pecans just as much as I do. And I’d also like to imagine that he’d want them all compiled into 1 delicious, crispy-yet-gooey cookie (just like I do). These cookies are so easy and such a fun treat to bake this holiday season – get your kiddos involved and you’ll see why!
What are Santa’s Kitchen Sink Cookies?
If there’s anything I love, its gotta be a classic kitchen sink cookie. Maybe its the combination of so many different textures all wrapped up into 1 cookie, but I think my favorite part about them is that you can literally look in your pantry and throw anything you have in there. I can even bet that you’ve probably got most – if not all – of the ingredients in your pantry just ready for you to start whipping these babies up.
For these holiday-inspired cookies I did a little twist on the classic kitchen sink cookie and made them with ingredients I think Santa would have on hand in his pantry! Things like Christmas-colored m&ms, pecans, marshmallows (for allll the hot chocolate), and pretzels came to mind. I even used a base of browned butter to take these cookies to the next level. If you’ve never made browned butter before though, don’t worry, I wrote an entire blog post dedicated to walking you through how it’s done. You should catch on pretty easily!
Ingredients for Santa’s Kitchen Sink Cookies
- Butter
- Sugar
- Light brown sugar
- Eggs
- Pure vanilla extract (or vanilla bean paste)
- All-purpose flour
- Baking soda
- Kosher salt
- Christmas-themed m&ms
- Miniature pretzels
- Miniature marshmallows
- Pecans
- Chocolate chips (or chocolate chunks)
- Flaky sea salt
Tips for Making Santa’s Kitchen Sink Cookies
- Use browned butter – sure, you can opt to swap the browned butter for room temperature butter here, but I hiiiighly recommend you stick to browning that butter. It truly works wonders on these cookies, especially with all the different add-ins and textures – it compliments them all perfectly. If you’re unsure how to make browned butter (or you’ve never done it before), check out my detailed tutorial in this blog post. If you are short on time, though, definitely just use regular butter instead of not making them at all!
- Toast your pecans – This is such a minor detail in the entire recipe, but trust me you guys… it is so incredibly worth it to toast the pecans before you add them into your cookie dough. It doesn’t seem like a necessity, but it is!!!
- Don’t overmix the dough – this might be my number 1 tip that I always try to include in cookie recipes. There’s nothing worse than a tough, brittle cookie that feels more like a hockey puck than anything.. and that’s exactly what overmixing the dough does. The more you mix any dough that has flour in it, the more the gluten strands will begin to develop–resulting in a tough product. It’s great to beat and knead for a long time if you’re making bread, but we’re making cookies here everyone 🙂
I hope you all love this recipe as much as I do, and as always be sure to tag me on socials (@sarahsdayoff) if you make these so I can see all of them!! Merry Christmas and happy baking!!!
Love,
Sarah
Santa's Kitchen Sink Cookies
Ingredients
- 18 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract or use vanilla bean paste
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup Christmas-colored m&ms
- 1/2 cup roughly chopped miniature pretzels
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans toasted and cooled
- 1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
- 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- Flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Increase heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, 7 to 10 minutes or until butter turns a deep golden brown along the bottom of the saucepan and smells nutty.
- Immediately transfer butter to a clean bowl; cool completely.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Add butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat 2 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, beating to combine.
- In a separate bowl whisk flour, salt, and baking soda. Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture, and pulse until only a few streaks of flour remain (do not overmix).
- Add m&ms, pretzels, pecans, marshmallows, and chocolate chips, and pulse until just combined.
- Scoop cookies into uniform sizes, and place on prepared pans. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown on the edges.
- Remove from oven; sprinkle with sea salt, and let cool on pan before transferring to a cooling rack.
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