These festive candy cane cookies are so cute, and are the perfect gift for the holidays. They are made by rolling up red and white cookie dough to form the shape of a candy cane. The addition of mint flavor to the sugar cookie dough makes these cookies not only look like a candy cane, but also taste like one.
Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter (softened)
1 cup of granulated sugar
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 ½ teaspoons pure mint extract
1 ¼ teaspoons light vanilla flavoring
3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
½ teaspoon red squeezable gel
Instructions
Using a stand mixer, or a hand mixer and a large mixing bowl, at medium-high speed, beat the unsalted butter for 1 ½ to 2 minutes.
Reduce mixing speed to low, and add granulated sugar, cream of tartar, and other ingredients. Increase mixing speed to medium and continue mixing for 2 to 3 minutes or until butter mixture is fluffy.
Reduce mixing speed to low and add the mint extract and clear vanilla flavor.
Keeping the mixing speed low, slowly add the baking powder and all-purpose flour one cup of ½ each time. Continue to mix until the flour is well incorporated and no visible streaking of flour is visible.
Divide cookie dough into 2 equal dough balls. Return 1 ball of dough to the mixing bowl to be colored red. Cover the ball of dough that will be the white part of the candy cane cookie and place it in the refrigerator.
Add the ½ teaspoons of red gel to the remaining dough in the mixing bowl. Using the mixer at low speed, add the red color to the dough until it is a uniform color and no white stripes are visible. Place the red dough in a medium size bowl and cover the red dough and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Just before taking the dough out of the refrigerator, preheat the oven to 350* and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Using a measuring spoon ½, remove the white and red dough balls. Roll each one into a tight round ball, to ensure that the dough string maintains its shape.
Cover your counter or cutting board with a sheet of parchment paper. (This is to prevent the countertop or cutting board from becoming red) Use your hand to roll the white and red dough balls into 5-inch long ropes. It is very important that your hands stay cool while rolling up the ropes.
Slightly press the bottom of the two strings. Carefully twist the ropes with light pressure. Be sure to keep the ropes round and not flat.
Place the twisted string on the prepared baking sheet and curve the top of the string at the elbow of the candy cane. Repeat the twisting process with the remaining dough. Place the cookies 2 inches apart.
Bake for 7 minutes.
Allow cookies to cool in the mold for 10 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container.
Recipe Notes
Tip 1: Adding the mint extract is how the cookies will get their mint flavor, it seems magical! Without it, the cookies will taste like regular sugar cookies. So, if you want to have some cookies that are normal, leave the extract out of that batch.
Tip 2: When making the dumplings and candy canes, be sure to cover the counter or cutting board with a sheet of parchment paper. This will prevent the countertop or cutting board from being stained red.
Tip 3: When rolling up the ropes and creating the candy cane shapes, it is very important that your hands stay cool. You don’t want to roll them up if your hands are too hot or they might lose their shape.
Tip 4: Be sure to keep the strings rounded and not flatten them when creating the candy cane shapes.