These Peppermint Sugar Cookies are lovely cookies to make for the holiday season!
This has always been a pretty popular holiday cookie recipe here on the RecipeGirl website. The recipe first appeared in an old Bon Appetit magazine. But it needed a bit of re-working. These peppermint sugar cookies are more like a shortbread cookie than a sugar cookie. They are light and flaky, and the peppermint flavor is not overwhelming. The addition of crushed candy canes makes them perfectly festive.
Ingredients needed:
- all purpose flour
- baking powder
- salt
- butter
- powdered sugar
- egg yolk
- egg whites
- peppermint extract
- crushed peppermint candy
Ingredient notes:
Use peppermint extract. Do not use mint or spearmint extract, unless you want your cookies to taste like toothpaste! For the crushed peppermint candy, it’s okay to use candy canes. But you can also use the little round peppermints. Just smash them to bits, and you’ll be good to go.
How to make Peppermint Sugar Cookies:
Make the dough using an electric mixer. Stir in crushed peppermint candy. Gather the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour.
Form the chilled dough into balls. Roll the dough balls in powdered sugar and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Use a fork to create a criss-cross on the top of each sugared cookie dough ball. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet. Then move them to a rack to cool completely.
Peppermint sugar cookies are a good recipe to add to your holiday baking list. They’d even be a good cookie to bake for a cookie exchange party!
If you are looking for more holiday cookie recipes, you might like to try these:
- Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
- Eggnog Cookies
- Yellow Cake Batter Christmas Cookies
- Chocolate Espresso Snowcaps
- Chewy Molasses Spice Cookies
Peppermint Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 2½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ¾ cup powdered sugar
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 large egg whites
- ½ teaspoon peppermint extract (NOT mint or spearmint)
- ½ cup (about 3 ounces) finely crushed hard peppermint candies or candy canes
- additional powdered sugar, for rolling
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, sift together the dry ingredients- flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk and beat until blended. Add the egg whites and peppermint extract and mix well (the mixture will look grainy). Gradually beat the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Stir in the peppermint candies.
- Gather the dough into a ball. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for about an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Position a rack in the middle of the oven. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silpat mats, or spray with nonstick spray.
- Form the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in powdered sugar and place them on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them 2-inches apart. Using the tines of a fork, flatten each cookie, creating a crisscross pattern.
- Bake until the cookies are golden on the bottom, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool completely.
Notes
- *Use round peppermint mints or small candy canes (they easier to unwrap than the larger ones).
- *These cookies turn out best if mint is crushed finely, with few large "chunks" of peppermint.
- *Reader tip: Add white chocolate chips! Or melt the white chocolate and drizzle it on top.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
How long do these keep somewhat fresh in an airtight container? Thanks ahead!
You can freeze them until Christmas, but at room temp I’d say just a few days.
I made this recipe exactly as written with one exception of doubling the peppermint extract. We all loved everything about them—the soft, almost chewy texture, the tiny bits of crushed peppermint, the light sweetness, and the yummy buttery minty flavor. These are perfect holiday cookies I will make again. Thanks for the recipe, Recipegirl!
We love this recipe! It’s a huge hit for my boys! Thank you so much for sharing your recipes.
These cookies are so delicious. I’m afraid there won’t be any left by Christmas!
But they were so easy to make, and there are more candy canes on the tree…
I just Love how these turned out! Thank you
I found this recipe last Christmas and made it for my small group of 1st grade girls at church. They are candy cane lovers and these were a lovely addition to their Christmas goodie bags. Unfortunately, I didn’t bookmark this page, so this year I had to search again for a candy cane sugar cookie recipe. My first batch this year was a different recipe and I was so disappointed by how they turned out. I think these are great! I am so glad I found this page again!
So, i am 11 years old and my mom LOVES to bake and LOVES anything Mint. i was looking for a Mint Sugar Cookie recipe So i can wake up very early to make her these cookies on Christmas, so when she wakes up they will be warm. As i kept looking for a good recipe all i found was Chocolate mint cookies! i was devastate! Until… i found this one. I am hoping this is very good! and telling by some of the comments I am probably gonna have to put a tad more peppermint. Well wish me luck making these cookies by Myself!
Good Luck!
I’m only 8 and I found this recipe on my Anna’s iPad and we made it today. We used a big hammer to crush the star rites and some flew all over..it was fun, and they were delicious.
That’s so fun to hear!!
I’ve just made these and they’re wonderful. I used a mix of salted & unsalted butter as did not have enough unsalted, so I omitted the salt. I had no peppermint extract so I used vanilla and added a little more powdered sugar to the recipe as people had said they weren’t sweet enough. I find them lovely & sweet and plenty minty enough for me….maybe my candy canes are very strongly flavoured. Like Marcie though mine spread quite a bit and the indentations aren’t very pronounced. They are also slightly cakey in the centre, crispy around the edges but softer in the middle, I’m not sure how I could have prevented this. They are still lovely, just not as crispy as I had expected.
These are definitely on my holiday baking list!