These Candy Cane Cookies are adapted from my Lemon Crinkle Cookie recipe. They are absolutely divine and we can thank my ex’s mom for that!
Candy Cane Cookies come from my 16-year-old ex-boyfriend’s (who I dumped twice) mom. I learned that his mom had adapted my award-winning Lemon Crinkle Cookies into a holiday version. I did a little tweaking myself and voila, holiday heaven in a cookie. Simple, sweet, soft and most of all, the perfect amount of peppermint flavor.
Candy Cane Cookie Recipe
This Candy Cane Cookie Recipe uses everyday ingredients to make soft, chewy and delicious cookies. Perfect for the Christmas season because this recipe uses candy canes! YUM! Start by gathering these ingredients:
- Sugar – no brown sugar in this recipe, we are keeping it simple and light with plain ol’ granulated sugar.
- Butter – for taste and structure.
- Egg – for structure.
- Vanilla – for taste. Some of my readers have gotten away with not adding vanilla, but I think it makes a major difference.
- All-Purpose Flour – this fills out the cookie.
- Baking Soda – helps create a super soft and chewy texture.
- Baking Powder – this does most of the leavening (rising) for the cookies.
- Salt – to balance the sweet and minty.
- Powdered Sugar – this is used to roll the cookie dough balls in. SO GOOD.
- Candy Canes – just use regular candy canes here, about 1/4 cup crushed.
How to Make Candy Cane Cookies
- Now that you have your ingredients, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray, line with parchment paper or use silicone baking mat and set aside.
- Next step, crush your candy canes. Throw them into a plastic Ziploc bag and bang them up with a rolling pin. I didn’t even unwrap the candy canes either. Once they’re crushed, you can pick out the plastic wrappers. I had a few bigger chunks of candy cane, but for the most part, these were pretty small.
- Ok, now let’s get started with the cookie dough. Cream some butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. This is a super important step for soft cookies.
- Whip in vanilla and an egg. Scrape sides and mix again. My KitchenAid does an amazazazing job at this.
- Measure out your baking powder, baking soda, and salt and stir it into your flour.
- Excluding the powdered sugar, dump all your dry ingredients into the bowl and stir it around until it’s just incorporated. Scrape sides of the bowl and mix again briefly.
- The last thing to do is add in your crushed candy canes. I don’t know about you but I could eat this whole bowl of dough. Come to momma.
Once I dismounted the bowl from the mixer, a little girl showed up in my kitchen with her “green” {OXO spatula} and requested a taste test. She was so cute that I agreed and then kept her for free child labor.
- To form these sweet lil things, start by pouring powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar.
- Place on a baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough. It’s not rocket science, people! Super simple stuff.
A great job for little hands.
P.S.–> Expect a mess.
- Once you have a tray full, pop those babies into a 350-degree oven and let ’em bake 9-11 minutes. NOT TOO LONG! The key to this is their chewiness. You want the outside of the cookie to look matte {not shiny} when you pull them out. Mine were done in 8 minutes on the nose.
- See? Not shiny and barely golden {if that} around the edges. Cool them off and serve them up!
Candy Cane Cookies Tips and Tricks
Baking Time. If using a nonstick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.
Peppermint. Want even more minty flavor? Try adding peppermint extract to the dough.
Spreading. If your cookies are spreading too much, it’s because there is too much butter. Try adding in small amounts of more flour until you get that signature cookie dough texture.
More Christmas Cookies to Bake!
- Triple Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies
- Chewy Chocolate Fudge Cookies with Peppermint Glaze
- Chocolate Mint Cookies
- Jumbo Double Chocolate Candy Cane Kiss Cookies
I LOVED these Candy Cane Cookies and hope they make it to your mouth soon. 🙂 Printable recipe card below!
Candy Cane Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 candy canes crushed (1/4 cup)
- ½ cups butter softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- ¼ teaspoons salt
- ¼ teaspoons baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoons baking soda
- 1-½ cup all purpose flour
- ½ cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray, line with parchment paper or use silicone baking mat and set aside.
- Place candy canes into a plastic food storage bag and crush using a rolling pin. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla and egg. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir all dry ingredients together in a small bowl and then in pour into the mixer and slowly mix until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of the bowl and mix again briefly. Stir in crushed candy canes.
- Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on the baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begins to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Sara says
Oh! How perfect. I have a cookie exchange TONIGHT and I was still debating over what to make. This will be it. Yay!! Thanks for solving my DEEE-lema!
Sara says
Ok – so I made these and I’m ready for my cookie swap tonight, I just have to say,
HOLY-NEW-FAVORITE-COOKIE-BATMAN!!! These are DEE-lish!!! They will be a part of every Christmas from here on out! Thanks to you and your x-boyfriend’s mom 😉 !
Keith says
Good straight forward cookie for a guy to make. Great way to use up those left over candy canes too.. Thanks!
Julie @ Table for Two says
ok, i’m bookmarking this because i’m SO making this on sunday when i make my holiday cookies for work — this is awesome!! thank you 🙂 🙂 your daughter is the cutest thing ever! i really hope i have a daughter so i can cook with her 🙂
Miranda Headrick says
With Christmas right around the corner when I saw these, I knew I needed to put them on the list this year! We make so many cookies at Christmas….kind of a tradition. The tradition being gaining an obligatory 5 lbs 😉 We are expecting number 4 (a little boy as well) on Jan. 1st, so the kids and I will be baking away early this year and freezing so we can enjoy baby time when he arrives….and be able to pull out a quick treat when we want! Thank you for all your amazing recipes!
Laurie {Simply Scratch} says
AWW~ Love this post! Your daughter is adorable! {and so are those cookies!!} 🙂
Rachel @ Not Rachael Ray says
Ha, your story cracked me up! Your daughter is beautiful, and these cookies look AMAZING! Pinning–might have to squeeze these in this year.
Kathryn says
Oh those pictures of your daughter helping are just the cutest thing ever!
Megan Pence says
Ohhhh, awkward first loves. Gotta love ’em.
I love how she adapted your recipe, talk about a great twist on a classic!
Natalie says
That is hilarious. You were quite the little heartbreaker it seems! I love her idea of swapping lemon for candy canes! Maybe you can get that roll recipe afterall…
Briana says
Remind me to tell you sometime about how I dumped your brother-in-law on Christmas Eve. at age 12. We love this story. 😉
Averie @ Love Veggies and Yoga says
these look so great!! I love that someone’s mom is reading your blog and adapting your recipes…before you even 🙂 That’s pretty cool…I dont think my mom reads my blog and would probably laugh at it. haha!
I saw your donuts on the front page of FG and on Tasty Kitchen..congrats. Now I want these cookies and donuts!
Michelle says
I LOVE chewy cookies. I’m pretty sure I’m making these tonight. Yummy.
Tara @ Chip Chip Hooray says
Crinkle cookies make me smile. And these are holiday-happy too! 🙂
Lauren @ What Lauren Likes says
Hahah great story and recipe! To cute 😀
Jessica @ How Sweet says
these look seriously perfect. love.
Blog is the New Black says
Lauren, or Lauren’s ex’s mom: GENIUS! I am making these! 🙂
Magen says
That story cracked me up! And I can’t wait to make these.
Amber, RD says
Oh my! These sound wonderful. Unfortunately, my baking list is set for the rest of the Christmas season, but these will be on my list for next year. How brilliant is a candy cane cookies?
P.S. What a beautiful little girl!!
Melissa // thefauxmartha says
I’ll take three! Peppermint anything is my weakness.
Beth - Slice of Southern says
Love peppermint! These look so good, and your daughter is a doll!
Priya says
Interesting read…I couldn’t stop reading to know how it ends :). YUMMY cookies…you have a cute little helper!!
Moontaj says
I am TOTALLY making these!
Do have 1 question what is the purpose of Baking Soda in the cookies?
Totally n000b question but I’ve wondered cause I’ve made cookies without the baking soda before and they turned out fine.
CouponClippingCook says
o.m.g. these look soooo good. seriously, love how they look chewy…and the color of the cookie looks so delish. Also, your little one is just adorable. So love your pics too. great post.
brandi says
ouch – what a way to be dumped 🙂 although, i have some stories that are probably worse.
these cookies look great!
Jill Lombardo says
Wow, will have to make these this weekend. But now that you know she reads your blog, you can definitely work on getting the roll recipe…and ….share it with us=) Thanks for a great story and wonderful recipe!
Michelle says
Love this idea and the quick cooking time so much I linked to you on my blog for my holiday madness round up! Would love it if you checked it out!
http://www.fromthefirstbite.com/2011/12/last-minute-holiday-madness.html
xo
Jolene (www.everydayfoodie.ca) says
Those look amazing!!!!!! I love that the recipe is really easy and includes things that I always have on hand! Mmmmmm! I am going to make this one!
Jessi says
These are sooo good! and easy too. A permanent addition to my Christmas cookie list! Thanks 🙂
natalie (the sweets life) says
ahh i’m regretting using up all of my candy canes this weekend! great story and great recipe 🙂
channing @channingosity says
yum, yum, yum, these look like minty pillows of sweet heaven! cannot wait to try!! thank you! channing
Heather Walker says
I make a cookie very similar to this, but along with the peppermint I add WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIPS! It is really, really good!
Erin P. says
Okay…these were great! BUT, I have to share this. I was low on butter. So…I used shortening. I know people think I am a crappy baker for this. However, in my defense…I always have shortening and with all the great mint flavor dominating this cookie it was still delicious.
Dara says
Hi Lauren, I made these cookies for the first time today, and they are divine. So easy to make, beautiful to look at, and absolutely delicious. I quadrupled the recipe to bring to a cookie swap tonight. Thank you!
Brie says
Delicious! I made these today and they were really easy to make and tasted great. I gave some to my mom and she said that they were the best cookie she had ever eaten.
Lilia Beltran says
So excited to try these!! 🙂
Heather says
Wow these cookies are awesome! My leftover candy canes were green and red so they came out super festive! Not everyone in my family likes peppermint though so I also did a batch with crushed up Werthers in them….Double WOW! I have to freeze them so I don’t gain ten pounds before Christmas time 🙂 thanks for the recipe! Will add this to the annual mix!
Katerina Klimes says
I popped my candy Canes in the food processor. The cookies were lovely, soft, chewy. We also did a thumb print in the middle and sprinkled the candy cane dust in the middle…..so cute and nice
Monica Epstein says
Yum, Lauren. These cookies are delicious. And I never thought of using the rolling pin to pound the candy canes. Duh. I used to roll the pin over the ziploc bag and it took forever, not to mention the shards of candy would cut the bag and start leaking out. Thanks for a great recipe.
Lisa Gonzalez says
These sound so good and easy. I can that!! Lol
But I dont have a mixer could I mix it by hand?
Julia Bee says
Definitely, you can mix by hand. I’ve never had a mixer but once borrowed from a friend for a year and I know that I can even mix things for 3-5 minutes. Younger people to take turns mixing is great when it’s longer! 🙂 Cookies are the easiest thing to mix by hand.
Kay says
Candy cane crinkles, yum yum!!!!
Alexis AKA MOM says
Thank you so much for the recipe. It was a huge hit, I can’t wait to try the lemon version. I’m post a link to you 🙂