Monster cookies perfect for Cookie Monsters

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/12/2021 (1700 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Louise Yurchak had a Christmas problem 25 years ago, she ended up creating a monster.

Monster Cookies that is, and her creations have lived on for years, just like Dr. Frankenstein’s invention, or perhaps more fittingly, Cookie Monster of Sesame Street fame.

Her recipe is today’s entry for the Free Press’s 12 Days of Christmas Cookies, and it’s easy to imagine the blue-haired Muppet gobbling up her combination of peanut butter, chocolate chips, oatmeal and Smarties.

Fussy grandchildren were behind Yurchak’s recipe, which she adapted from a recipe she saw at the old Scoop ‘n’ Weigh bulk-foods store in River Heights, where her family has lived since 1969.

“I have very fussy eaters. (One grandson) didn’t like sweet things but he would eat Smarties,” she says, adding that the recipe needed some adjustments to suit her family’s tastes.

“I made them less sweet. The recipe that I had gotten originally had a cup and a half of white sugar and a cup and a half of white sugar and I thought that was too much.”

Those fussy kids have grown up but their love of Monster Cookies rages on.

Yurchak was busy baking Monster Cookies last week for her five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, not to mention their parents and grandparents and other relatives, whether they live in Winnipeg or she ships them to others across the country.

She was able to visit a great-granddaughter in Vancouver for her sixth birthday in late November, and she was glad to bake some Monster Cookies for the celebration there.

She’s made them for school groups, Boy Scout meetings and even with visitors over for a cup of coffee.

“It’s not necessarily a Christmas cookie, it’s more of an all-year-round cookie, at least it is in our household,” she says. “I have not found a child that didn’t like them.”

Monster Cookies

1/2 cup margarine
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
4 1/2 cups oatmeal flakes (quick cooking)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 cup Smarties

Cream the margarine and peanut butter, add the sugars and mix well. Combine eggs, vanilla, oatmeal and baking soda and mix together. Add to the other mix and mix well.

Add the chocolate chips and Smarties.

Bake at 350 F for 8 to 10 minutes.

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall

Alan Small
Reporter

Alan Small was a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the last being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.

   Read full biography