Candy Cane Cookies

3.92 from 12 votes

These festive candy cane cookies are made from twisting together red and white cookie dough and they make for the perfect holiday treat.

Prep Time30

Cook Time7

Chill1

Total Time1 37

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: cookies

Calories: 90kcal

Author: Jennifer Fishkind

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter softened
1½ cups granulated sugar
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1 large egg room temperature
1½ teaspoons pure peppermint extract
1¼ teaspoons clear vanilla flavoring
⅛ teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon red squeeze gel color

Instructions

Using a stand mixer, or a handheld mixer and a large mixing bowl, on medium-high speed, cream the unsalted butter for 1½ to 2 minutes.
Reduce the mixing speed to low, and add the granulated sugar, cream of tartar and heavy cream. Increase the mixing speed to medium and continue to mix for 2 to 3 minutes or until the butter mixture is fluffy.
Reduce the mixing speed on low and add the egg. Mix until well incorporated.
Add the peppermint extract and clear vanilla flavoring.
Keeping the mixer speed low, slowly add the baking powder and all-purpose flour ½ cup at a time. Continue mixing just until the flour is well incorporated and no visible streaks of flour are showing.
Divide the cookie dough into 2 equal dough balls. Return 1 dough ball to the mixing bowl to be colored red. Cover the dough ball that is to be the white part of the candy cane cookie and place it in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Add the ½ teaspoon red gel color to the dough that is left in the mixing bowl. Using the mixer on low speed, add the red coloring into the dough until it has a uniform color and no white streaks are visible. Place the red dough in a medium-size bowl and cover the red dough and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Just before removing the dough from the refrigerator, preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Split the red and white dough in half leaving half of each color in the refrigerator.
Cover your counter or a cutting board with a sheet of parchment paper. (This is to keep from staining the counter or cutting board red)
Using a ½ tablespoon measuring spoon, scoop out the white and red dough balls. Roll each into a tight round ball, to make sure the dough rope holds its shape. Tip: I recommend chilling them again for 10-15 minutes. The cooler they are the better.
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 you are rolling the ropes.
Lightly press the bottoms of the 2 ropes together. Carefully and with light pressure, twist the ropes together. Be sure to keep the ropes rounded and do not flatten them out.
Place the twisted rope onto the prepared baking sheet and curve the rope tops into the candy cane crook. Repeat the dough ball and twisting process with the remaining dough. Place the cookies 2 inches apart.
Bake for 7 minutes.
Allow the cookies to cool on the pan for 10 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.
Take the other ½ of red and white dough out of the refrigerator and repeat steps 11 through 16.
Store cookies in an airtight container.

Notes

Tips:

Don’t skip chilling the dough, as this will help minimize the spread of the cookies while baking and preserve the candy cane shape.
Oven temperatures vary and may need to be recalibrated periodically to ensure they are accurate. Make sure to keep a close eye on your cookies as the suggested baking time approaches.
Adding in the peppermint extract is how the cookies will get their peppermint flavor, seemingly magically! Without it, the cookies will taste like normal sugar cookies. So, if you want to have some cookies that are regular, just leave the extract out of that batch.
When rolling your dough balls and making the candy canes be sure to cover your counter or a cutting board with a sheet of parchment paper. This will keep from staining the counter or cutting board red.
When rolling the ropes and creating the candy cane shapes, it is very important that your hands stay cool. You don’t want to roll them if your hands are too warm or they may lose shape.
Be sure to keep the ropes rounded and do not flatten them out when creating the candy cane shapes.

Nutrition