The perfect christmas cookies for Santa
Besides christmas trees, santa and his reindeers, candy canes are definitely up there when we think about christmas stereotypes. They just have such an iconic shape and taste. This year, let’s transform the tasty tweet into incredibly delicious candy cane cookies. While these christmas cookies might closely ressemble candy canes, they however taste nothing like them as they go for a buttery vanilla flavor. So no peppermint this time around.
Candy canes were supposedly invented in the German city of Cologne in 1670. The choirmaster of the Cologne Cathedral handed them out to his young singers during service. They made their way to the US in the 19th century thanks to a German-Swedish immigrant who moved to Ohio. Candy canes used to only ever be white, yet at the start of the 20th century they got their iconic red stripes added and got their typical peppermint flavor. Interstingly though, they are not really present in Germany nowadays and if they are it’s more seen as something very American.
With these amazing candy cane cookies, it is absolutely crucial that you let them cool down first, before storing them away. They start out being quite fragile, when they come out of the oven. So it’s prudent to let them cool down and harden a bit.
At a glance
- Servings: 24 cookies
- Preparation time: 15 min
- Rest time: 1 hr
- Oven time: 16 min
- Time from start to finish: 1 hr 31 min
Ingredients
- 2 cups and 1 teaspoon (300 grams) of flour
- 2/3 cups (135 grams) of white sugar
- 1/2 cup + 1 teaspoon a.k.a. one stick + 1 teaspoon (125 grams) of room-temperature butter
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla aroma
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon of red food coloring
Preparation
Mix all ingredients (except for the red food coloring) for the candy cane cookies in a large bowl until everything is well blended and you have a smooth dough. Afterwards, split the cookie dough in two equal halfs and then add the red food color to one of them.
Let the both parts of the dough for your candy cane cookies rest in the fridge for 1 hour to chill. This step is actually really important, as it refers to the temperature of the butter. The softer the butter, the more the dough will spread out and be runny in the oven, while that’s great for chocolate chip cookies, it is not ideal for cookies that should hold their shape.
Separate each of the cookie doughs into 24 parts and roll each part into a 4 inches long log. You should then end up with 24 red and 24 white logs. Pair each red with one white and roll them against each other to combine them to a two colored log. Next twist the logs on both end into opposing directions so you get the typical candy cane color twist.
Place the cookie on a baking tray prepared with parchment paper and lay them in a candy cane form, meaning the upper end needs to bend down. You should at end up with two filled baking trays for that. Make sure to bake them one after the other and not both at the same time as the cookies should get equal amount of heat from above and below.
Bake the candy cane cookies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celsius for 8 minutes. Carefully let them slip of the baking tray onto a cooling rack or your kitchen counter. Be very gentle with that as the cookies tend to break easily until they are fully cooled down.
Congratulations, you have just created an absolutely delicious batch of vanilla christmas cookies that might not only be your new favorite, but will certainly make Santa very happy, when he finds them under the tree.
