Candy Cane Cookies, or Peppermint Swirls
I have made these a few times over the years and have tried a few recipes. Some require more prep time than others (putting in fridge for hours). My preference is simple and at one sitting!
Today, Clayton, my almost 3-year-old (Dec 30th birthday) and I made Candy Cane cookies. Needless to say, they started out looking like candy canes and by the end became Peppermint Swirl Cookies 🙂
PARENT TIP: Just go with it! When you have young children, get them involved, but let them be creative. You can make the “perfect” ones while they make whatever they want. Clayton helped make the “snakes” and twirled a few for candy canes, and then started mixing the dough. He has a blast…and we had fun making cookies together. No stress.
These are fairly quick to make and baking is 8-10 minutes. They cool fast and can be enjoyed right away.
Once your cookie dough is made, you divide the dough in two and put half back in the mixer with red food colouring. You will end up with a ball of white and a ball of red dough. Break off some pieces of dough and create logs (or snakes as the kids will say), one of each colour. Then twist the two colours to create the candy canes.
Candy Cane Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup Butter
- 1 cup Confectioners Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1 1/2 tsp Peppermint Extract
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 10 drops Red Food Colouring
Instructions
- In mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Add Egg and Vanilla & Peppermint extracts. Mix well.
- On low speed and 1/2 cup at a time, add Flour and Salt. Mix until well combined and dough forms.
- Divide dough in half and add food colouring to one half of the dough. At this point you can refrigerate the dough for about 1 hour. This will make the dough easier to shape and handle. Or you can flour your work surface and hands and start assembling right away. (we were not patient enough to wait for the refrigerator part 🙂 )
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Placing oven racks with one in second to bottom setting, and one in top 1/2 of oven. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment, silpat or use baking stones.
- Using about 1-2 inch size balls, form a long rope of each colour. Once ropes are formed, pinch ends together and twist the dough to make the candy cane. Place on cookie sheets laid our long with a hook on the end to create the Candy Cane shape.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes and remove to cooling racks.
Do you participate in cookie exchanges? They are a fantastic way to bake for the holidays. Here are our tips on how to host a cookie exchange.
Some other cookies we make at Christmas time are Crinkle Cookies, Slice & Bake Sugar Cookies, Cranberry Citrus Shortbread & Cream Cheese Cookies.
We also LOVE this Candy Cane Bark recipe, so tasty and simple to make!