Peanut Butter M&M Skillet Cookie
Cookie dough mixed in the bag at home, baked in a foil-lined pan over coals.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 4 oz
- cal / oz
- 130
- protein
- 7 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 60 ml cold
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Campfire coals
- Dutch oven
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Foil packet
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| All-purpose flour | 2 1/2 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Granulated sugar | 1/2 cup | |
| Brown sugar | 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp | pack it or it dries out on the drive |
| Cornstarch | 1 1/2 tsp | |
| Baking soda | 3/4 tsp | |
| Baking powder | 1/3 tsp | |
| Salt | 3/4 tsp | |
| Powdered whole egg | 3 tbsp | stands in for one egg plus a yolk |
| Powdered whole milk | 2 tbsp | replaces the 1/3 cup of fresh milk |
| Vanilla powder or vanilla sugar | 2 tsp | extract leaks; powder does not |
| Butter or shortening | 3/4 cup | shortening rides warm days better than butter |
| Peanut butter M&M's | 1 large bag | pick out the red, white, and blue if you care about that |
| Cold water | 1/4 cup |
Method
- Burn a fire down to coals, or light a chimney of charcoal. You want steady low heat, not flames.
- Line a 10-inch skillet or dutch oven with foil and grease the foil with a little of the butter.
- Squeeze the butter or shortening into the bag of premix and work it through with your hands until no dry flour is left loose.
- Add 1/4 cup of cold water and keep working the bag until it comes together as a stiff dough. Do not keep going past that point.
- Fold in most of the candy. Press the dough into the pan about 3/4 inch thick and push the rest of the candy into the top.
- Set the pan on a grate over the coals with a lid on. If using a dutch oven, put a shovelful of coals on the lid too.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes. It is done when the edges are set and the center still looks slightly underbaked.
- Pull it off the heat and let it sit 10 minutes. It finishes cooking in the pan.
This is a bakery cookie rebuilt as one pan of shortbread-thick cookie over coals. Twenty individual cookies means minding a hot skillet for an hour, so the dough goes in flat and gets cut into wedges instead. The dry side of the recipe is unchanged: cornstarch and the heavy hand of brown sugar are what keep the middle soft rather than crisp.
The fresh ingredients had to go. Egg and milk become powders that rehydrate with a quarter cup of cold water, which is also all the mixing liquid you need since there is no creaming step to lighten. Vanilla extract is swapped for powder because a leaking extract bottle ruins a food bin. Shortening instead of butter if it is hot out; you lose a little flavor and gain a dough that is not soup at the trailhead.
Packing
Combine flour, both sugars, cornstarch, soda, powder, salt, egg powder, milk powder, and vanilla powder in one gallon freezer bag at home. Butter and candy travel separately. The candy melts if it rides against a warm pan, so keep it deep in the food bin.
Variations
- Plain M&M's or chocolate chips work the same; the peanut butter shell is what makes it worth carrying.
- Half the batch in a small skillet if there are only two of you. It bakes in about 15 minutes.
- No pan: press the dough into a doubled foil packet and set it on the edge of the coals, turning once.
https://mealswithmaria.site/patriotic-peanut-butter-mm-cookies