What could be better than a cookie monster made from cookies?! I call these double cookie cookie monster cookies because this is a cookie sandwich. I don't think there's much better than that! Nom nom nom!!!!

This cookie was brought to you by the letter C and the number 2! :)

This cookie is pretty easy and actually adapted from an incredibly delicious "secret" recipe I found on the internet. Since the cookie does not get very brown I thought it would take food dye very well to make the perfect cookie monster blue.

The dough for the following recipe will make about 36 cookies or 18 monsters (depending on how big you roll the cookie balls). However to get enough eyes, you will either need to buy a bigger bag of all white M&Ms or buy many packages of coconut M&Ms. My 1.5 oz package had about 10-11 white M&Ms which was just enough to make 5 monsters.

The basic cookie recipe is this:
Cream Cheese Cookies

1 cup butter
1 sm pkg of Cream Cheese (3oz)
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
2.5 cups flour
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and cream cheese . Slowly add sugar beat until fluffy
Beat in egg yolk, add flour and vanilla. Mix Well. Chill dough
For at least 1 hour. Shape into 1 inch balls. Place on greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 325 degrees for 12-15 mins.

If you do what I did (I removed about half of the dough to make the other kind of cookie) whee more cookies! Use this frosting, it is AWESOME:
Frosting
2 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons of butter
1 grated lemon rind

Cream butter and add sugar slowly add lemon juice and rind.
Spread on warm cookies

My personal note is that this makes about double the frosting you need, so I'd either cut this in 4 or make more cookies to go with the frosting.

Step 1: Ingredients

Step 1 gather your ingredients
1 cup butter
1 sm pkg of Cream Cheese (3oz)
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
2.5 cups flour
1 tsp. vanilla
Blue food safe dye gel
white M&Ms (I used coconut)
Food safe Markers
Chocolate Frosting or chocolate melting chocolate (depends on what you have handy, the melting chocolate will make a more solid sandwich, the frosting a more moist one. Frosting is easier, but unfortunately I did not have chocolate frosting on hand.
Cookie Crisp (not pictured as I forgot to put it in the ingredient photo, but this is a key ingredient)

Step 2: Cream Butter and Cream Cheese

This step is pretty easy, just like the title...Cream the butter and cream cheese together. I've also noted that here you are using 3 oz cream cheese, I like to use my fingernail to draw a line on the 3 oz mark so when I go to cut, I can see where 3 oz is. 1 cup butter is two sticks of butter. Save the butter papers for greasing your cookie sheets. Mix the butter and cream cheese together until they look, well creamy.

Step 3: Slowly Add Sugar Beat Until Fluffy

Add the 1 Cup of sugar in slowly as the beater is mixing. Beat until they look fluffy.

Step 4: Separate Egg and Add Just the Yolk

To separate an egg, using a clean bowl, crack the egg and then pour the egg yolk back and forth between the two halves of the egg shell until all of the white is left in the bowl. Save this for scrambled eggs or making macarons. You won't need the egg white for the rest of this recipe. Dump the egg yolk into the mixer and run the mixer until it is incorporated.

Step 5: Add Flour and Vanilla

Add 2.5 cups of flour, slowly so you don't get a giant puff cloud of flour. Mix. Add 1 tsp vanilla. Mix well.

Optional step:

After mixing I removed 1/2 of the dough so that I could make the original lemon cookie recipe. You can skip this step if all you want is cookie monsters.

Step 6: Achieve the Perfect Cookie Monster Blue

Since the idea for the cookie monster was a new one to me, I had to add the blue dye in increments. Remember, you can always add more dye, but you cannot take dye away. I added a toothpick sized amount of dye 3 times. After each addition I scraped the bowl and mixed well again, because some of the dye can tend to get stuck to the bowl. If you were making an entire batch, you could either add 2 toothpick sized amounts of dye at a time, or go whole hog, but I think it's easier to incorporate dye a little bit at a time. Remember that these cookies do not brown a lot, but since there may be a bit of browning, the finished cookie may not stay as true blue.

Step 7: Chill Out

OK so the dough now gets to chill in the fridge for an hour. While that's happening you can do things like grease your cookie sheets, clean up the mess you made on the counter and make some cookie googly eyes. Remember, Cookie Monster's eyes are not dead set in the middle, they're very googly, so put the pupils slightly off center. Do this with either white M&Ms or coconut (saving the green and brown for snacking during the hour wait) and draw with a Food Safe Marker. If you get done early, start writing an instructable about your cookies :)

Step 8: Preheat Oven, Prepare Cookie Dough and Bake!

Preheat the oven to 325. While that's happening, shape into 1 inch balls. Place on greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 325 degrees for 12-15 mins. If you want your cookie monsters slightly larger than I made them, you can slightly flatten the cookie dough balls, if not, they will spread in the oven to the size shown in the finished cookie.

Step 9: Remove From Oven and Let Cool

Gently nudge the cookies around the pan with the spatula prior to transferring to a cooling rack. This keeps them from getting deformed when you transfer them, as they may or may not have stuck to the pan. After about a minute, you can easily move them to the cookie rack. Let cool completely.

Once cooled, sort the cookies into evenly sized pairs.

Step 10: Prepare the Frosting or Chocolate

If you are using frosting, scoop it into a ziplock bag and cut off one corner.

If you are using chocolate, in a microwave safe bowl, microwave the chocolate for 20 second intervals, stirring in between. It should take less than 2 minutes to get melted chocolate. Remember the chocolate is still hot, so while it still has tiny chunks of chocolate left, you can start transferring it to the bag and it will finish melting there. Scoop into a ziplock bag and cut off one corner.

Now be prepared to work quickly before the chocolate hardens.

Step 11: Assemble the Cookie Monsters

Pipe two lines of chocolate on the bottom cookie.
Place one or 3 cookie crisps in the chocolate.
Place the top cookie on the cookie sandwich, it will be at a slight angle due to the cookie(s) in his mouth.
Pipe two small blobs of chocolate.
Place the eyes, making sure they look googly enough.

Voila! Double Cookie Cookie Monster Cookies!

Enjoy with lots of milk!