Christmas Candy Cane Cookies Recipe (2024)

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This ChristmasCandy Cane Cookies recipeis a family-favorite cookie that creates sweet holiday memories.Made from asimple cookie dough recipe, with plenty of festive peppermint flavor,the colorful dough istwisted to look like a real candy cane. Always a favorite at Christmas parties and cookie exchanges.

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When I was little, there were onlytwo cookies that I vividly remember my mom making for Christmas. One was Russian Teacakes and while I certainly didn’t turn them down, they weren’t my favorite. But there was one cookie that my mom made for Christmas that I loved:Candy Cane Cookies.

I’ve talked with other people about Candy Cane Cookies over the years. A lot of times, they willme how they made them with their mom for Christmas and, because of that, the cookies always held a special place in their heart. Candy Cane Cookies always seem to be one of thetop memory-making Christmas cookies.

But, making candy cane cookiesside-by-side with mymother, wasn’t my memory. I don’t recall ever helping my mom make them. I’m not sure if she never thought to have us help, of if she preferred to do it herself, or maybeus kids didn’t want to help, but it wasn’t something I made with my mom.

But while that might seem a bit sad, it’s totally not. Because my memory is that when my mom made those cookies, she was a superstar baker. I didn’t understandhow my mom could transform a candy cane into a delightfully sweet cookie. How did she make the two colors? How did she make it all twisted together? Just how did she do it? I asked her. I always asked a lot of questions. But shedidn’tgive me all her secretsand so themagicremained.

Ingredients Needed for Christmas Candy Cane Cookies:

Cooking Equipment needed for Christmas Candy Cane Cookies:

At some point, my mom stopped making Candy Cane Cookies.But her times of making them were enough to seala memory in my mind. Eventually, when I was a young wife and mom, I made thoseCandy Cane Cookies for my kids. I’m not sure my kids are asimpressed with mine, asI was with my mom’s, but I know they love them and I know that they eat them almost as fast as I can make them. And that’s good enough.

Chilling Your Cookie Dough

You’ll be relieved to know that no magic or superpowers are needed to make these cookies, but there is several important steps.

Because this dough requires you to handle and roll the dough with your hands, the chilling of the dough is VERY important. While all the steps to this recipe need to be followed, I would say it’s most important step. DO NOT skip this step and if your dough begins to get too warm (either due to the heat of your hands, the temperature in your home, etc), it may need to be put back into the refrigerator to chill some more.

Coloring Your Cookie Dough

This Candy Cane Cookie dough is a simple sugar cookie dough, which is divided in half. One half of the dough is left as the original cookie dough color, but the other half is tinted with red food coloring gel.

It is VERY IMPORTANT that you use gel food coloring and that you do not use liquid food coloring. The liquid food coloring will add too much liquid/moisture to the dough to achieve the bright red color. With food coloring gel, you’ll be able to use less food coloring since it’s more concentrated.

Some grocery stores may not carry gel food coloring. I usually buy it at Michaels craft store or JOANN Fabric & Crafts (be sure to use one of their coupons!), but I’ve also seen it at Walmart. Check the usual baking aisle or the craft department. If you have a local bakery supply store, they are also a great resource for food coloring gels.

Shaping Your Candy Cane Cookies

To make a Candy Cane Cookie, you take 1 teaspoon of each color and roll each color out into a “rope” that is about 5″ long. You’ll find that many Candy Cane Cookie recipes will tell you to make the ropes 4″ long. I like the 5″ long because I prefer a more slender candy cane look. The two rope colors are twisted together and then placed on a baking sheet, curving the top to one side so that it forms the look of a candy cane.

Crushed Peppermint Topping

The cookies are baked in the oven, giving you just enough time to create a mixture of sugar and finely crushed peppermint candies. For best result, small pieces of peppermint mixed with a finely crushed peppermint is the best mixture (see our photos). If you buy pre-crushed peppermint, you may need to crush it even more by placing it in a bag and smashing it with a rolling pin or crushing it more in a food processor (our preference).

The sugar/crushed peppermint is sprinkled on top of the hot cookies *IMMEDIATELY* after coming out of the oven. It won’t all stick, so don’t worry if it doesn’t. I recommend that you don’t skip this step – it really makes them quite pretty and even more delicious.

Once you’ve added the peppermintsprinkle on top, your Christmas Candy Cane Cookies are done and ready to be enjoyed!

When buying ingredients for these Candy Cane Cookies, please note that we used real butter (not margerine or shortening). Your results may vary if you substitute other ingredients.