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Candy Cane Cookies
January 15, 2019
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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
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!
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.
Notes
If using a nonstick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.
Nutrition
Calories: 113kcal | Carbohydrates: 18g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 16mg | Sodium: 66mg | Potassium: 15mg | Sugar: 12g | Vitamin A: 130IU | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 0.4mg
My daughter and I made these tonight – super duper yummy!! Great recipe! These will be added to our family favorites. Thanks so much!
I made these today – well tonight at 11pm cuz if I didn’t now well the last three candy canes I had were gonna go bye-bye into my mouth :p
THE only two differences in the recipe that I didn’t do/use is a. I didn’t have the vanilla extract sadly :c but I have made cookies without it & they’ve tasted good anyways.. The OTHER thing is.. I should have done like you bang a candy-cane with the rolling pin in a bag.. erm I was like I can do these easy.. HAHA no I ended up putting them into a bowl & using the bottom of a glass coffee cup i ended up powdering more then crushing. :c
I wish there was more peppermint flavor throughout the cookie but cuz mine was more powdered then crushed I suspect that’s why. :3 THOUGH did make my batter a nice shade of pinky red :3
Lauren,
Loved the story
Loved these cookies! Brought them to our Christmas Bazaar today and was asked for the recipe four times!
Awesome!!
I just made these cookies. I’m not a baker at all and they came out wonderfully! I’m bringing them to a friend’s house tonight. haha, I love your story too!
This is by far the best way to use up old candy canes, I made these for my wife and they were great. But recipe is overly complex. I just threw everything into a bowl in alphabetical order and scooped it out onto a tray and it worked fine.
Very good and favorable. Mine seem to spread a little too much. Maybe cause of the butter. Any suggestions?
How do you measure your flour? That seems to be the one thing that is different when making these cookies. I think you would need 1-2 tablespoons more flour to keep them from spreading as much.
These are very good cookies. I made them today and the neighbor kids liked them. They did spread however. I suppose its cause of the butter? All in all they were good.
I think the butter is why they spread. It seems like all the cookies I make with butter have been spreading alot. Perhaps more flour is the answer. Good luck!
I have purchased crushed peppermint candy (yes, it comes in a bag much like chocolate chips). Can you tell me approximately how much (in a measurement) 3 candy canes crushed equals? Guessing 1/3 cup roughly?
I purchased crushed peppermint candy (yes it comes in a bag much like chocolate chips). How much would you guess 3 crushed candy canes measures–1/3 cup?
Oh my gosh those look so good, I hope me and my mom can make them together, by the way your daughter is soooo cute! Okay, thank’s
[…] Adapted from: Lauren’s Latest […]
You should probably start the dry ingredients sentence with “excluding the powdered sugar” – not tag it on after “pour into mixer and mix slowly” – otherwise someone (!) will waste a lot of ingredients following the recipe step by step…
Hello! Fast forward to 2016…if i am using already crushed candy canes, how much should I put into the recipe?
Thanks!
Making these with my kids tonight!
So excited to make/try these this year!
These wonderful cookies have become a Christmas tradition in my home. They’re my go-to gift cookie and I bake them every year. I’m even doing a Whole30 this month and can’t have them, but I’m still baking several batches. Thanks so much for this easy and awesome recipe!
[…] are the Lemon Crinkles. Those won a little contest and put me on the map. Then I did some Christmas Candy Cane Crinkles. Then more recently I made these Orange Cranberry Crinkles last year. And now, some Red Hots […]
Hi!
Are these freeable?
I have a bag of crushed candy canes I bought from target. How much should I measure out that would be equivalent to 3 candy canes?
Try 1/4 cup or so. Not too much 🙂
Omgosh, these cookies are THE BEST!!! I did add a little peppermint extract too. These are super easy and delicious! Thank you for sharing!
Hi – My mom received a lovely floral arrangement from my aunt for Christmas. There were six candy canes included. I found your recipe but I’m not sure how much candy cane to add. Since candy canes and the round hard peppermint candies come in different sizes I’m not sure the amount of candy to add. Can you please share approximately how much crushed candy I should use? Should I add a tablespoon plus or minus? Thanks
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I’ve made these for a couple of years now for a Christmas Eve party we always go to! They’re on my list again!!
I can’t wait to try this recipe. My kiddo is going to ❤️ these cookies for Christmas!
I love these Candy Cane Cookies! So soft and so so perfect for the holidays!
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