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Red Hot Cookies are sweet, spicy, chewy, and basically perfect cookies. Great for gifting and they’re just perfect for Christmas or Valentine’s Day! Inspired by my original award-winning Lemon Crinkle Cookies, these will make a spicy addition to your dessert platters!
Red Hot Cookies aka The Perfect Cookie
Main Ingredients Need
Aside from needing to grab some Red Hots, you probably have the rest of the ingredients in your pantry.
- Red Hots Cinnamon Candies – crushed. These are hard yet chewy cinnamon-flavored candy.
- Butter – softened. Use real butter for these cookies, instead of butter-flavored Crisco or margarine.
- Granulated Sugar – to sweeten.
- Vanilla Extract – used for flavoring.
- Egg – for structure and texture.
- Baking Powder + Baking Soda – this gives the cookies their rise and texture.
- Salt – balances out the sweet flavor
- All Purpose Flour– this fills out the cookie and gives it some structure.
- Powdered Sugar – aka confectioner’s sugar for rolling the dough in powdered sugar puts the crinkle onto these Red Hot Cookies.
Red Hot Cookie Variations
- One of my readers suggested making these into cut out cookies by adding 4 ounces of cream cheese when you are creaming the sugar and butter together. Then on a slightly floured surface, roll the dough out and cut away! She then dusted the tops with powdered sugar before placing in the oven.
- Another reader said they rolled the cookie balls in crushed red hots instead of powdered sugar.
How to Make Red Hot Cookies
Ready to make some amazing cookies? For full recipe details, including ingredients and measurements, see the printable recipe card down below. Here is step by step what you can expect when making this cookie recipe.
Preheat Oven + Prep Baking Sheets
Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease light-colored baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray, line with parchment paper or use a silicone baking mat and set aside. Place Red Hots into a plastic food storage bag and crush using a rolling pin or mallet. You could use a food processor, but a rolling pin works just as well. Set aside.
Make the Dough
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla extract and egg. Scrape sides and mix again. I like to use my stand mixer for this step.
Excluding the powdered sugar, stir the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl and then pour into wet ingredients (butter/sugar mixture) and slowly mix until just combined. Scrape sides of the bowl and mix again briefly.
Stir in crushed red hot candies. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Use a cookie scoop to create a teaspoon sized dough ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on the baking sheet and repeat with the remaining dough.
Bake + Cool
Bake 9-11 mins until bottoms begin to barely golden brown and cookies look matte (not melty or shiny). Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Pro Tip: If using a non stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.
FAQ About Red Hot Cookies
A lot of you have mentioned to me that these cookies don’t spread out. This problem happens because there is too much flour in your cookie dough! To fix this problem, fluff up your flour. Spoon it into your measuring cup and then level the top. This is the correct way to measure flour and how I measured it for this recipe. Be careful when measuring and you’ll have perfect Red Hot Crinkle cookies.
A common problem when making these Red Hot Cookies is that they flatten out way too much! Why? It’s because of the butter. This recipe calls for softened butter, not melted butter. The best way to get softened butter is to plan ahead. A couple of hours before you make these cookies set 1/2 cup of butter on the counter. As it sits there is will soften.
But if you are in a pinch you can microwave butter to soften it instead. Microwave in 5-second intervals rotating your cube of butter each time. Please please please use caution when softening this way. It can easily go from solid to melted in seconds! And in turn, your cookies will spread way too much.
This recipe will make about 24 cookies if you stick to 1″ cookie dough balls.
Storage + Make Ahead Directions
Store leftover cookies at room temperature, in an airtight container for up to 5 days, for maximum freshness.
To Freeze Unbaked
These freeze really well, so making them ahead is a great option! Simply follow the directions on the recipe card up until baking. Don’t bake yet. Instead line a tray that will fit in your freezer with parchment paper, and place a single layer of cookie balls on the tray. Freeze for 1 hour or until frozen. Once frozen, stick the cookie balls in a freezer-safe bag. Cookies will last in the freezer for about 2-3 months.
To Bake from Frozen
Put the cookies directly on the cookie sheet and stick them in your preheated oven. Sometimes the cookies need an extra 1-2 minutes to bake correctly. Be sure to check on them often!
More Cookies to Try This Holiday Season!
- Christmas Shortbread Cookies
- Cranberry Orange Cookies
- Triple Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies
- Amaretti Cookies
Sweet, delicious perfect cookies. I tell ya, these Red Hot Cookies are some of my very favorites EVER and you all are bound to love these too! Be sure to pin and print this one 🙂 The printable recipe card is below.
If you make this recipe, I would really appreciate it if you would give it a star rating and leave your review in the comments! If you have a picture of your finished dish, post it on Instagram using the hashtag #laurenslatest and tagging me @laurens_latest.
Red Hot Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp Red Hots candy crushed
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 whole egg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease light colored baking sheets with non stick cooking spray, line with parchment paper or use silicone baking mat and set aside.
- Place Red Hots into a plastic food storage bag and crush using a rolling pin. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together with a hand mixer (or stand mixer) until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla and egg. Scrape sides and mix again.
- Place all ingredients (excluding the powdered sugar) in a small bowl and give them a stir to combine. Add them into the bowl of wet ingredients and slowly mix until just combined. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly.
- Stir in crushed candy.
- Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes* or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte (not melty or shiny). Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
I have made these 4 times now!! Each time I double the recipe. I didn’t have red hots but I did have red hot candy canes left over from Christmas. I crushed up 9 Red Hot candy canes and added them in. People are RAVING about these. I can’t get over how good they are!
Other than doubling the recipe I do also add in a tsp. of butter flavoring. I am not sure if it makes them better but I do love the butter flavor as well.
These are great cookies but your directions about using the mixer confused me. Like it doesn’t say mix the ingredients all together in a mixer. A big teaspoon makes about 36 cookies. I didn’t know if that was a typo. I do love the taste though.
I have made these several times. I use 3/4 cup crushed red hots, big hit
Loved theses cookies! I doubled the recipe. I crushed a scant 1/2 cup red hots and also added a 1/2 cup whole red hots to the dough. Everything else was the same. (No need to double the powdered sugar). I did notice that 10 minutes was not long enough to bake. Mine were perfect at 14 minutes. I used a #40 scoop which is 1 1/2 Tbsp. Made 4 dozen cookies
These were good! We made two batches- half using red hots and half with Wilton cinnamon drop sprinkles, and we actually preferred it with the cinnamon drops instead. They both tasted incredibly similar but the cinnamon drops won out. Thanks for a unique recipe!
I’ve probably made this recipe a dozen times. Today I didn’t have powdered sugar to finish. But I don’t notice any appreciable difference and think I will just skip the powdered sugar from now on. I need to try a krinkle without the red hots and using some cardamom.
These cookies are amazing! Just made them for a cookie exchange. Simple to make but tastes like they were made by a professional. I’m definitely not a baker. I used a meat tenderizer to crush the red hots instead of rolling pin. Cheers!
OK so what did I do wrong? My “cookies” ended up spreading all over the pan into one big blob. Luckily my cookie sheet had sides so the dough didn’t run over onto the oven! Once they were baked and cooled I could cut them into squares, but they were a devil to scoop out of the sheet! If I made this recipe again I would bake it in a 9×12 pan and call it “squares”.
How did you measure your flour? Sounds like you needed more flour!
If you want to turn these into cut out cookies for Christmas or Valentines, just add 4 oz. cream cheese and add flour to a surface and put the dough on the floured surface and add some flour or even the powered sugar to the top- make flat and use some cookie cut outs, it worked great!!!
These are delicious! Made as posted, they are a wonderfully different cookie. The surprise pop of cinnamon is fabulous!
I make these for Christmas now! Red hots are scarce, but I always find them at my local grocery candy aisle. Thank you so much for the recipe!