Candy Cane Christmas Cookies

Nothing says Christmas more than candy canes and cookies for Santa. These amazingly easy cookies have only 3 basic ingredients plus the candy cane topping and a wee bit of icing. They’re fun and tasty and what Christmas is all about.

Whether you are baking cookies for Santa to leave by the fireplace on Christmas Eve (with a nice glass of hooch of course!), or are looking for something really easy to bake with the kids during the holidays these super-simple candy cane cookies will tick all the boxes.

Why you’ll just love these cookies

Because there are only 3 cookie ingredients plus those all-important candy canes and a couple of spoons of icing

They taste so pepperminty and fresh

This is a super easy bake that comes together in no time at all. Better still, you can get the kids to do the work for you, result!

Ingredients

As I’ve said there really are hardly any ingredients in these Christmas cookies. It’s all about bits and pieces from your store cupboard.

The only thing you’ll probably have to buy are the candy canes if you haven’t got them lurking about already. Actually, if you made my Candy Cane Gin a few weeks ago you should have some left if you haven’t polished off the lot already.

Caster sugar – if you only have granulated sugar you can whizz it in your food processor to make it fine like caster sugar.

Plain flour

Butter – I’ve used unsalted butter here as I always use it for baking. I like to be in control of the salt in my cooking so I only buy unsalted butter. It’s no problem if you only have the usual salted butter, carry on!

That’s it for the actual cookie ingredients. Now for the decoration, you want a couple of candy canes and a couple of tablespoonfuls of icing sugar.

The complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making this recipe can be found on the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.

How to make them

As I’ve said these are super simple. So either roll up your sleeves or find a willing child to do this for you.

Beat together the butter and sugar till nice and fluffy and then start beating in the flour till it comes together in a dough.

Squish it about a bit with your hands to make a ball and then flatten on a floured surface and roll the cookie dough out to about 3mm/1/4″ thick.

Cut out your cookie shapes. I went for rounds with a hole in the centre thinking they looked a bit like little Christmas wreaths. I was going to make them snowflake-shaped but couldn’t find those cutters.

Put them on a lined cookie sheet and pop them in the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm up.

Then just bake those festive beauties for about 15 minutes till they are just turning golden. They will firm up a wee bit more while cooling on a wire rack.

Decorating your Christmas cookies

Now comes the messy bit and also the fun. You will want to crush those candy canes till you have itty bitty pieces and peppermint dust. I find the best way to accomplish this is to put them in a bag and beat hell out of them with my rolling pin while thinking of someone I don’t like. 

Hmmmmm maybe that’s saying a bit too much about my character. If you are a nicer person than me feel free to crush them in a mortar and pestle or even with your mini food processor.

The kitchen will smell all pepperminty and fresh when you do this, it’s lovely.

Mix up some icing sugar with a little water just to make a simple glaze and drizzle this over the cookies. Now sprinkle with the crushed candy canes and leave them to dry for at least half an hour.

This is actually the most difficult part of the recipe – not eating them right away!

Storage

Really, you seriously think these gorgeous little candy cane cookies are going to last longer than five minutes? Mine certainly didn’t. Actually, they will keep quite happily in an airtight tin or plastic box for up to three days.

You could freeze the cookie dough before baking so you can whip up a batch of these Christmas biscuits even quicker.

Notes

Normally this 3 ingredient cookie dough would be considered rather plain. But because you are topping them with the crunchy and chewy peppermint candy canes you are adding a whole heap of fabulous flavour.

Quite honestly you wouldn’t want any other flavours competing with that minty freshness.

This recipe makes a great foodie gift, so why not check out my post on how to make Christmas hampers.

Looking for more easy Christmas bakes to see you through the holidays? Then check these out before you go;

Christmas cake/fruit cake cookies (+ video)

Super easy mini mince pies (+video)

Last-minute Christmas cake

Super easy Christmas baklava (+video)

Buche de Noel (Chocolate log cake)

Gluten-free Christmas cookies

Finally, if you do try this recipe don’t forget to leave a comment/star rating below as I just love to hear from readers. Want more Larder Love? Then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and sign up for my newsletter too of course.