Even though we seldom get trick-or-treaters anymore, I still like making these cookies at Halloween—treats for grown-ups! Studded with colorful Peanut M&Ms, they are festive, nutty, and wheaty, using Wheatena cereal as one of the flours.

Halloween Cookies
Jane Crosen, Maine Mapmaker’s Kitchen

5 Tablespoons salted butter
¾ cup dry Wheatena (cracked wheat and bran cereal)
⅝ cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 large egg
½ cup toasted wheat germ
2 Tablespoons canola oil
¼ cup oat flour
Juice of 1/3 orange, about 2½ Tablespoons water
1½ cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Peanut M&Ms, 3 per cookie
¼ teaspoon salt

Cream together wet ingredients in large mixing bowl.

Sort M&Ms into about 20 groups of 3 complementary colors. Combine remaining dry ingredients (Wheatena through salt) in separate bowl and add to wet mixture. Mix until flours are moistened.

Preheat oven to 365°, and oil 2 cookie sheets. Spoon evenly sized lumps of dough onto cookie sheets, about 8 per sheet, and press 3 different-colored Peanut M&Ms into the top of each one, to both decorate and flatten the cookie.

Bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until a light nutty brown; be careful not to overbake. Cool slightly and remove to rack.

Makes 18-20 cookies.

Jane Crosen is the author, with husband Richard Washburn, of the cookbook Maine Mapmaker’s Kitchen: Creative, healthy recipes for home, camp, and afloat.

MF&L Staff at Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine.