Peppered with real bits of candy cane and melted dark chocolate, these super soft, dark chocolate peppermint sugar cookies are the perfect canvas for all your holiday cookie decorating needs.
If you love a good sugar cookie but are looking for something with a little more of a holiday twist, THIS is your cookie.
Dotted with bits of real candy cane and two kinds of chocolate, these chocolate peppermint cookies are as rich as they are festive.
Prefer to watch the process?
Here's how to make this recipe
First, melt your chocolate in a double boiler.
In a bowl, stir the chocolate over a pot of boiling water until it's smooth and lump free. Turn the burner off and leave the bowl over the pot of boiling water so that it doesn't begin to harden.
If you don't want to use a double boiler, you can microwave the chocolate in 10-15 second increments, stirring between microwaving.
Second, make the dough.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes).
Properly creamed butter is light, fluffy and doesn’t cling to the sides of the bowl. If you’re new to baking and want to learn more, check out this article on creaming butter and sugar by King Arthur.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the egg, peppermint extract and melted chocolate. It's important that the egg are room temperature so the chocolate doesn't seize.
Continue beating the dough on medium speed until just combined.
In a bowl, sift together the flour and baking cocoa. Add the flour/cocoa to the dough in one cup increments, scraping down the sides between each new addition.
The dough should be soft and may be slightly sticky, but should pull away from the sides of the bowl. If it's still clinging to the sides of the bowl, add flour one tablespoon at a time until you can easily pull it away.
Fold the crushed candy canes into the dough, flatten it into a disc, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.
Finally, cut out and bake the cookies.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until malleable. Roll out to ¼" thick and cut out with desired shapes.
Bake at 350F on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for 6-10 minutes, or until the tops of the cookies are no longer shiny.
How to decorate sugar cookies
There are lots of ways you can decorate these sugar cookies, including using royal icing or buttercream frosting.
If you plan to decorate your cookies with royal icing like I did for this post, you can find my favorite royal icing recipe here on the blog, along with 10 things I wish I'd known about decorating cookies when I started 10 years ago.
For this set specifically, I used a 20 second royal icing. With the icing in a small bowl that would fit the length of the cookies, I dropped a few drops of royal icing on the surface of the icing, swirled it with a toothpick and then dipped the top of each cookie straight into the icing.
Shake gently to allow the excess to drip of, turn right side up and place on a cooling rack to harden for at least 6 hours but preferably overnight.
Expert tips
- Bringing butter to room temperature: Fill a bowl with warm water, place the butter in a slightly smaller bowl and place it over the bowl of water. The butter should be at or around room temperature in about 5-10 minutes.
- Why do we cream the butter and sugar for this recipe, and how do we know when it’s ready? Creaming these two ingredients together allows the sugar to aerate the butter making for a fluffier cookie. Properly creamed butter is light, fluffy and doesn’t cling to the sides of the bowl.
- The importance of room temperature eggs: For this recipe, it’s important that the eggs are at or around room temperature so that the chocolate doesn't seize when it's added to the dough. If you forgot to take the eggs out in advance (we’ve all be there), you can fill a bowl with hot water from your tap and place the eggs in it for about 5 minutes.
- Halving this recipe: Since you can’t add half an egg to a recipe, the best way to halve this recipe is to use the whole egg and adjust the flour to 1 ½ cup. All other ingredient amounts can be halved as you normally would.
- Working ahead: This sugar cookie dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up 5 days or freezer for up to 3 months before use. Be sure to thaw frozen dough in the refrigerator before using it.
- Sugar cookies lost their shape while baking: If your cookies lost their shape during the baking process, no worries! If you act quickly, it’s an easy fix. Simply re-cut the cookies with the same cookie cutter immediately after removing the tray from the oven.
- Baked sugar cookie surface is uneven: Sometimes sugar cookies will develop little bumps and air bubbles as they bake. If this happens, run a fondant smoother gently over the tops of the cookies immediately after they’ve been removed from the oven. If you don’t have a fondant smoother, gently patting the top with a paper towel works, too.
- Storage: Unfrosted sugar cookies can be stored in a cookie jar at room temperature for 2-3 days or in a cool, dry, airtight container for up to 3 weeks.
Recipe
Chocolate Peppermint Sugar Cookies
Peppered with real bits of candy cane and melted dark chocolate, these super soft, dark chocolate peppermint sugar cookies are the perfect canvas for all your holiday cookie decorating needs.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Chill Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
- Yield: 2 dozen cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 2 sticks butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- 2 tsp peppermint extract
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 oz dark chocolate
- 2 ¾ cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup baking cocoa
- ⅔ cup crushed candy canes
Instructions
- Melt your dark chocolate over a double boiler, stirring until lump-free.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium light and fluffy.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the peppermint extract, salt, melted chocolate and egg. Beat again until the mixture is thoroughly combined.
- In a bowl, sift together the baking cocoa and all purpose flour.
- Add the all purpose flour/baking cocoa to the dough about one cup at a time, scrape down the sides of the bowl between each new addition.
- The dough should be soft and may be slightly sticky to the touch, but should still easily peel away from the sides of the bowl.
- Fold in crushed candy canes/peppermint candies until evenly distributed.
- Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
- Once the dough is chilled, knead it on a lightly floured surface until malleable.
- Roll the dough out to ¼″ thick. Cut out with desired shapes.
- Bake the dough at 350F for 6-10 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies.
- The cookies are done when they’re no longer shiny on top.
Notes
-
- Bringing butter to room temperature: Fill a bowl with warm water, place the butter in a slightly smaller bowl and place it over the bowl of water. The butter should be at or around room temperature in about 5-10 minutes.
-
- Why do we cream the butter and sugar for this recipe, and how do we know when it’s ready? Creaming these two ingredients together allows the sugar to aerate the butter making for a fluffier cookie. Properly creamed butter is light, fluffy and doesn’t cling to the sides of the bowl.
-
- The importance of room temperature eggs: For this recipe, it’s important that the eggs are at or around room temperature so that the chocolate doesn't seize when it's added to the dough. If you forgot to take the eggs out in advance (we’ve all be there), you can fill a bowl with hot water from your tap and place the eggs in it for about 5 minutes.
-
- Halving this recipe: Since you can’t add half an egg to a recipe, the best way to halve this recipe is to use the whole egg and adjust the flour to 1 ½ cup. All other ingredient amounts can be halved as you normally would.
-
- Working ahead: This sugar cookie dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up 5 days or freezer for up to 3 months before use. Be sure to thaw frozen dough in the refrigerator before using it.
-
- Sugar cookies lost their shape while baking: If your cookies lost their shape during the baking process, no worries! If you act quickly, it’s an easy fix. Simply re-cut the cookies with the same cookie cutter immediately after removing the tray from the oven.
-
- Baked sugar cookie surface is uneven: Sometimes sugar cookies will develop little bumps and air bubbles as they bake. If this happens, run a fondant smoother gently over the tops of the cookies immediately after they’ve been removed from the oven. If you don’t have a fondant smoother, gently patting the top with a paper towel works, too.
-
- Storage: Unfrosted sugar cookies can be stored in a cookie jar at room temperature for 2-3 days or in a cool, dry, airtight container for up to 3 weeks.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 205
- Sugar: 17g
- Sodium: 84mg
- Fat: 8.9g
- Saturated Fat: 5.6g
- Carbohydrates: 30.3g
- Fiber: 1.1g
- Protein: 2.4g
- Cholesterol: 29mg
Keywords: chocolate peppermint cookies, chocolate peppermint sugar cookies, chocolate cookies
If you liked this recipe, you might also like...
- Chocolate sugar cookies
- How to make cut out sugar cookies like a pro
- How to make royal icing: The ultimate guide
- 10 things I wish I knew about cookie decorating
Update notes: This post was originally published in December of 2013 but was republished with updated photos, directions, tips and a recipe that included candy cane bits in December of 2022.
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