What is one of your favorite traditions at Christmas? Here one of the many is baking cookies. They are delicious and always a treat for us and for guests! Peppermint cookies are a twist on a sugar cookie and a great way to bring in the holidays with the flavor of the season.
These are easy to make and you control the flavor with how much you put in. This is how we enjoy them and we even have a family member here who didn't want to try them because they don't like peppermint. He ate more then he would like to admit haha! Still cannot get him to try the peppermint whipped cream tho.
Want to know what is even better? You can use this recipe for sugar cookies too, they are an amazing soft baked cookie! You would just use all vanilla extract instead of adding peppermint.
Making the 2 colors is optional. Peppermint extract is clear so we used red food coloring on half of the dough.
Making peppermint cookies
I use this for sugar cookies and for peppermint cookies. They turn out nice and soft and are a cookie that won't last long in your house! You have choices here for shaping too. You can roll them out if you let the dough sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or you can just shape them with your hands. We shaped them with our hands here. One of the kids made some of these great shapes with her hands.
Let the butter sit out on the counter to soften. We let our butter sit out at least an hour before making cookies. You want it to be quite soft, but not melted so don't set it against the heater. You can use a hand mixer or stand mixer here, I prefer the stand mixer tho.
In a small bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In the mixing bowl (separate from the flour mix) cream the butter and sugar. Then add the extracts (vanilla and peppermint) and eggs one at a time, mixing a little after each egg.
Slowly add the flour mix to the dough about a cup at a time just until it is incorporated - do not over mix or cookies might turn out a little hard. If you are coloring half of the dough, remove half of it now and add food coloring to the remaining dough. If you are rolling it out, refrigerate for at least 30 minutes now. You can spoon it out to make circles, you can use your hands to shape or roll out and shape.
Baking the cookies
Bake in oven preheated to 350 for about 8-10 minutes, but this depends on how thick you make them. To have the softest of cookies, you don't want any brown on them. Once they start to get a little brown on the edges, they are starting to get burnt and they will harden up after they cool down. They will start to look a little crackled toward the center when it is time to remove them from the oven.
Only allow them to cool on the baking tray for about a minute before carefully transferring to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. If you are familiar with baking sugar cookies, remember these peppermint cookies are the same just with peppermint added.
Peppermint Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup butter unsalted, softened
- 1½ cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp peppermint extract
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 9 drops food coloring optional - see notes
Instructions
- If rolling cookies out, wait to warm up oven. If shaping with hands or spooning it onto trays, preheat oven to 350° F.
- In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- In the mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar.
- Add in the eggs, one at a time and the extracts - both vanilla and peppermint. Mix for about a minute.
- Slowly add in the flour mix and mix until it is just incorporated. If adding food coloring to half, remove half the dough and add food coloring the remaining dough just until it is mixed.
- If rolling out, refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes. Longer is better here. We didn't roll the dough, my daughter and I shaped these with our hands for some creative fun. You can also spoon some dough with a teaspoon onto the baking trays to bake them.
- Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, depending on the thickness you made them. Remove from the oven and allow them to sit for 1 minute before transferring to wire cooling rack.
Elena
Easy to make it with my little boy, I think... tasty cookies.
Marilyn Lesniak
Thank you for sharing at #ThursdayFavoriteThings. Pinned and shared. Have a lovely week. I hope to see you at next week’s party too! Happy Holiday!
Dawn
Thank you Marilyn 🙂 Hope you have a wonderful week as well and a very happy Holiday!
Pam
Sugar cookies are a favorite in our house, and the addition of the peppermint sounds really good! I'm always searching for the perfect soft cookie recipe. I'm even going to allow myself a few Christmas cookies, despite the Weight Watchers! (But I haven't baked any yet, as I'm not ready to be trusted with them quite yet!) Thanks so much for sharing them with us at Thursday Favorite Things.
Dawn
One trick with soft cookies is to make sure your butter is soft but not melted in the beginning. The other important trick is to make sure you remove them from the oven before they start to brown on the edges - it is one cookie that should not be browned at all.
I have a tough struggle with not eating too many cookies when I make them also so I get that! I bet you can do it - make them after dinner (or a nice size meal) so you are not hungry when you make them. Or you can even just drink a huge glass of water first so you are too full to eat a lot of them 🙂