Candy Cane Cookies
These Candy Cane Cookies are a festive holiday treat, with a sweet peppermint flavor and a classic candy cane shape.
Candy Cane Sugar Cookies
During the holidays, I love nothing more than baking cookies with my kids! Whether it’s cookies for Santa or a classroom party, we are always doing a ton of baking during the holiday season.
Aren’t these candy cane cookies the cutest?! They look just like real candy canes…in cookie form!
These candy cane cookies start with a simple sugar cookie dough that is flavored with peppermint extract and then shaped like candy canes. They are sure to stand out on any Christmas cookie platter or dessert table!
These adorable cookies will add a touch of holiday cheer to your kitchen and are perfect to give as gifts to friends and family. They are also a fun activity to make with children because they can help shape the cookies. And I’m sure they will love to taste-test them too!
Ingredients
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- 2 cups unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons peppermint extract
- 6 cups all-purpose flour
- Red gel food coloring
- White sugar sprinkles
Helpful Kitchen Tools
- Stand mixer or electric mixer with a large bowl
- Baking Sheet
- Parchment Paper or Silicone Baking Mats
- Rolling Pin
Instructions
To Prep: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
To Make The Dough:
- Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl with an electric hand mixer) until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs and peppermint extract.
- Add one cup of flour at a time, mixing with the paddle attachment. Scrape the sides of the bowl as you mix, until everything is well incorporated. Finish kneading by hand if needed.
- Divide the dough into two equal portions. Add red food coloring to one ball of dough and mix until you have a bright red color. Leave the other ball of dough white.
To Make The Cookies:
- Lightly flour you workspace. Use a rolling pin to roll out both portions of dough (separately) until they are each about 1/4 of an inch thick. Place one sheet of dough on top of the other. Use the rolling pin again to gently press the layers of dough together, pushing out air bubbles and smoothing everything out, so the whole thing is about ½ of an inch thick.
- Use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut out strips of dough that are about 6 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. Roll each strip of dough so it forms a log shape instead of being flat. Coat each piece of dough with the sugar sprinkles.
- Gently twist the red dough and white dough together, so that they make stripes like a candy cane. As you twist the dough, form a curve at the top so it is a candy cane shape.
- Transfer each candy cane cookie to your prepared pan. Bake for 8 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn a light golden color and the center of the cookie is no longer glossy.
Video Demo:
Prep Tips
- Chilling the Dough – As with any sugar cookies, if the dough becomes warm while you’re handling it, it may spread out a bit during baking. I recommend chilling the dough for 5-10 minutes after you’ve form the candy canes, before baking them, to help them keep their shape.
- Baking Time – Take care not to over-bake the cookies, or they will not be as soft and chewy. However, if you like crunchy cookies, you can bake an extra 1-2 minutes.
- Cooling Time – Allow the cookies to cool before removing them from the baking sheet, as they will still be a bit fragile while hot. Once the cookies have cooled to almost room temperature you can transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Yield – This is a big batch of sugar cookie dough that will make about 3-4 dozen cookies.
- Storage – Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. You can also freeze the cookies in a large freezer bag for 2-3 months.
- Extra Dough – Save the scraps of dough that you trimmed to make strips. You can re-roll those scraps and make them into candy-cane shaped cookies too. They will be more swirled since they’ve been rolled more than once, but will still look very pretty!
- Flavors – We made our cookies with peppermint extract, so they would not only look like candy canes, but taste like them too. However, you can use different extracts for different flavors if you prefer. Using a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract will make these taste like traditional sugar cookies. Using 2 teaspoons almond extract will give them a sweet marzipan flavor.
More Candy Cane Dessert Recipes To Try
- Candy Cane Jello Shots
- Candy Cane Layer Cake
- Peppermint Brownie Truffles
- Candy Cane Fudge
- White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
- Homemade Peppermint Ice Cream
Candy Cane Cookies Recipe (Printable Recipe Card)
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Candy Cane Cookies
These Candy Cane Cookies are a festive holiday treat, with a sweet peppermint flavor and a classic candy cane shape.
Servings: 36 Cookies
Calories: 213kcal
Cost: $10
Equipment
- Stand mixer
- Cookie sheet
- Parchment paper
- Rolling pin
- Mixing bowls
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons peppermint extract
- 6 cups all-purpose flour
- Red food coloring
- White sugar sprinkles
Instructions
To Make The Dough
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs and peppermint extract.
- Add one cup of flour at a time, mixing with the paddle attachment until incorporated. Finish kneading by hand if needed.
- Divide the dough into two equal portions. Add red food coloring to one ball of dough and mix until you have a bright red color. Leave the other ball of dough white.
- Use a rolling pin to roll out both portions of dough (separately) until they are each about 1/4 of an inch thick.
- Place one sheet of dough on top of the other. Use the rolling pin to press the dough together, squeezing out air bubbles and smoothing everything out so the entire thing is about ½ of an inch thick.
To Make The Cookies
- Use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut out strips of dough that are about 6 inches long and 1/2 inch wide.
- Roll each strip of dough so it forms a log shape, instead of being flat. Coat each piece of dough with the sugar sprinkles.
- Gently twist the dough so that it appears striped like a candy cane. Form a curve at the top so it is also shaped like a candy cane.
- Transfer each candy cane cookie to your prepared pan. Bake for 8 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn a light golden color and the center of the cookie is no longer glossy.
Video
Notes
Nutrition information is provided as an estimate only.
Prep Tips:
- Chilling the Dough – As with any sugar cookies, if the dough becomes warm while you’re handling it, it may spread out a bit during baking. I recommend chilling the dough for 5-10 minutes after you’ve form the candy canes, before baking them, to help them keep their shape.
- Baking Time – Take care not to over-bake the cookies, or they will not be as soft and chewy. However, if you like crunchy cookies, you can bake an extra 1-2 minutes.
- Cooling Time – Allow the cookies to cool before removing them from the baking sheet, as they will still be a bit fragile while hot. Once the cookies have cooled to almost room temperature you can transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Yield – This is a big batch of sugar cookie dough that will make about 3-4 dozen cookies.
- Storage – Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. You can also freeze the cookies in a large freezer bag for 2-3 months.
- Extra Dough – Save the scraps of dough that you trimmed to make strips. You can re-roll those scraps and make them into candy-cane shaped cookies too. They will be more swirled since they’ve been rolled more than once, but will still look very pretty!
- Flavors – We made our cookies with peppermint extract, so they would not only look like candy canes, but taste like them too. However, you can use different extracts for different flavors if you prefer. Using a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract will make these taste like traditional sugar cookies. Using 2 teaspoons almond extract will give them a sweet marzipan flavor.
Nutrition
Calories: 213kcal | Carbohydrates: 27g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.4g | Cholesterol: 36mg | Sodium: 5mg | Potassium: 29mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 11g | Vitamin A: 328IU | Calcium: 8mg | Iron: 1mg
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See all of our favorite Christmas cookie recipes here:
40 Best Christmas Cookie Recipes
Stacey is the creator of The Soccer Mom Blog, a Houston Texas mom blog that focuses on positive living for women and families. She loves to share real food recipes, money-saving tips, parenting encouragement, kids activities, DIY tutorials, home hacks, fitness, and so much more! To get to know Stacey even better, click here.
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These really look festive and are fairly easy to make the dough. But it felt like the dough is a bit ‘oily’ and we really struggled to get them shaped like a candy cane so we ended up making other shapes. They still taste amazing & are perfect for gifts!
These are amazing! We had a heat wave so my 2 layers were a bit too soft & did not want to ‘cling’ together so making Cane shapes was not too easy so we ended up just playing with all sorts of shapes & sprinkled the baked cookies with edible glitter for extra festive looks! Really worth a try, had so much fun with my 3yr old helping & he also loves the minty taste.
The edible glitter sounds like such a fun touch!