These Candy Cane Shortbread Cookies are a soft, light butter cookie with an optional hint of peppermint flavor. Shaped like candy canes, they are quite the festive cookie for the holiday season. The best part about these cookies? They are made from a no-chill dough, making these cookies quicker than many!
Why You Need These Shortbread Cookies
- Soft cookies with the lightest, most airy crumb!
- 8 ingredients total, calling for ingredients you likely already have in your kitchen!
- No-Chill Dough, making the prep so much quicker and simpler.
- Festive as ever with a super cute shape.
- Crowd-Favorite due to how fun and impressive they are to serve!
Candy Cane Cookie Ingredients
Unsalted Butter: You’ll need a stick and a half (3/4 cup) of unsalted butter at room temperature. If you need to use salted butter, reduce the butter in the recipe to 1/4 teaspoon.
Egg Yolk: One egg yolk is required for this shortbread recipe. Often, shortbread does not call for any sort of egg. However, one egg yolk provides extra structure, moisture, and chewiness.
Vanilla and Peppermint Extract: Vanilla extract is a must in these cookies to complete them, but add a bit of peppermint (or almond) extract for an extra kick of flavor if you’d like!
All Purpose Flour: Simple, plain, white all purpose flour is your best friend! Make sure to measure the flour correctly by using a kitchen scale or by spooning flour into your measuring cups before using a knife to sweep across the top to level the flour. Too much flour will make these cookies dry, dense, and hard!
Powdered Sugar: Using powdered sugar or confectioner’s sugar instead of granulated sugar adds sweetness while making these cookies 10x lighter and softer!
Salt: Salt brings out sweetness and enhances the full flavor!
Red Food Dye: To make the red part of the candy cane, you’ll need red food coloring. I use Americolor Super Red because it only requires a few drops for a deep color!
Assembling Candy Cane Cookies
- Roll the dough into 1-1/2 tablespoon-sized balls
- Roll the balls into 7 inch logs
- Take one white log and one red log and place one above the other, almost so they are touching
- Carefully, push the ends of one side of the logs together
- Take the lower log and lay it on top of the log on top
- Take the new lower log and lay it on top of the new log on top
- Repeat the process until the logs are fully used up and the dough is wrapped
- Carefully, push the other ends of the other side of the log together
- Curl the end of the log to create the candy cane shape
FAQ
A shortbread cookie is a light, slightly dense, butter cookie. They are known for holding their shape, for their true vanilla and butter flavor, and super simple ingredient list!
If your cookies go flat, your butter was too warm, you did not add enough flour, or you underbaked the cookies.
You do not need to add peppermint extract! You can leave it out altogether or substitute with almond extract if you’d like some extra flavor in the cookies!
Related Recipes
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Candy Cane Shortbread Cookies
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 14 cookies 1x
- Category: Cookies, Candy Cane, Peppermint
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Description
These Candy Cane Shortbread Cookies are a soft, light butter cookie with an optional hint of peppermint flavor. Shaped like candy canes, they are quite the festive cookie for the holiday season. The best part about these cookies? They are made from a no-chill dough, making these cookies quicker than many!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (165g) unsalted butter
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (optional)
- 1 2/3 cups (234g) all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup (90g) powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- red food dye
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat room temperature butter and the egg yolk together on medium-high speed until combined.
- Add vanilla extract and peppermint extract to the batter. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl.
- Slowly, mix flour, powdered sugar, and salt into the batter. Only mix until you see the dry ingredients fully disappear into the batter. Again, scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl, and mix one more time until the batter is smooth.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts. Add desired amount of red food dye to one of the dough halves. Ensure that there are no streaks of dye in the dough.
- Roll the dough into about 1 tablespoon-sized balls.
- Take one white dough ball and one red dough ball. Roll them into about 7 inch logs. The logs do not need to be perfectly even across.
- Press the ends of one side of the white and red logs together. Take the bottom log and carefully place it over the top log. Then, take the new bottom log and place it over the new top log. Repeat this process until you the dough is fully twisted. Lightly press this end of the each log together.
- Carefully, take the top of the log and curve it to create the candy cane shape. Transfer the candy cane to your prepared pan. Repeat this process with the remaining dough balls. You should have about 14 candy canes total.
- Bake the candy canes for 10-12 minutes or until the edges of the candy cane are starting to turn light golden brown, the tops look slightly soft, and the bottom of the cookie is golden brown when lifted off the pan using a spatula.
- Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack or a plate to finish cooling. Store cookies tightly covered or in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Keywords: candy cane cookies, holiday cookies, peppermint cookies, christmas cookies, shortbread cookies
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