Bunny & Flower Sugar Drop Cookies (For Easter, Baby & Bridal Showers And Tea Parties)

These simple & tasty sugar cookies can
be made without the candy decorations,
but they are so pretty & festive with
the pastel M&Ms. 
🩷🩵💜💚💛

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter

1 1/3 cups sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

additional granulated sugar

10 ounces (about 1 1/4 cups) pastel M&M candies**

Method:

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat together the butter and sugar for 3 to 4 minutes until light and fluffy. (Scrape down the sides as needed.)

Add the egg and vanilla and continue to mix for an additional 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again.

Sift the flour, soda, baking powder and salt together in a second bowl. Add the sifted ingredients to the creamed ingredients. Mix on low until all of the ingredients are fully combined.

Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes or longer.

Preheat oven to 350* Line baking sheets with parchment paper and lightly grease with butter or cooking spray.

Scoop 2 tablespoons of cookie dough and form into a ball. Roll in a small bowl of granulated sugar and place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 1o to 11 minutes. (The cookies should not be brown on top or around the edges.) As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, decocorate with the M&M candies.*** Gently push 1 candy face down for each bunny body. Gently postion 2 candies, on their sides, above each body to make the ears. (Decorate each cookie with 2 bunnies.) Or, place one M&M in the center of each cookie and surround with 6 more candies to make a flower.

Allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling completely. Store in an airtight container, in the refrigerator, with sheets of waxed paper in between layers of cookies. Makes 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

**Before the Easter holiday, you can find pastel M&Ms at many grocery stores. I have found giant bags for $15, but they also sell much lower priced bags of individually wrapped pastel candies to use for Easter Egg hunts. One of those bags contains enough candies to decorate 3 1/2 dozen cookies. I like to purchase a bag or two, to store in the refrigerator, so that I have them on hand for baking.

***Immediately press the candies into the cookies when they come out of the oven so that they stick. If you are decorating the cookies with M&Ms, only bake 6 cookies at a time. If you are not decorating with M&Ms, 12 cookies can be placed on each baking sheet.

Notes: 

These simple "drop" sugar cookies are very tasty on their own and could be rolled in different colored sugars for holidays, school or team colors.

My husband was skeptical before he tasted these cookies because he wasn't certain he would like the texture of the cookies. He loved them!