These Candy Cane Cookies are from an old Betty Crocker recipe, and I might never have tried them had it not been for Sue. She mentioned having fond memories of them, so we went back and found the original recipe in The Betty Crocker Cooky Book. Both of us made a batch with very different outcomes.
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Shortening
Candy Cane Cookies are old timey cookies made with shortening. There's probably a way to make them with butter, but I wanted to try Betty's classic, which calls for 1 cup of Grandma's favorite fat. Crisco has been tasting "off" to me for the past 2 years so I used Spectrum and it worked perfectly. The dough didn't spread and the cookies had a nice flavor. Sue used Crisco and didn't get the same results. The dough was workable, but the flavor was terrible.
Anyhow, the Spectrum shortening worked well. The candy cane cookie dough has both vanilla and almond extract, then you sprinkle the baked cookies with crushed peppermint so they have an interesting mix of flavors and aren't super strong on peppermint.
Making and Shaping
The downside to these cookies is that making them can be a mess because you have to color half of the dough red. I used my favorite red food coloring, Super Red, and wore disposable gloves to work it into the dough. Once it came time to make red dough worms, I was able to form them without the gloves and the red didn't rub off onto my hands.
These cookies would be a fun project for kids on Christmas. I plan to make them again for sure and hope Sue does too! I do think it would be fun to try an all-butter version at some point as well. Thanks to Sue for this recipe.
Update: Butter Version
I couldn’t resist trying the Candy Cane Cookies with butter, so I’ve updated the recipe and have added some tips. The good news is Land o' Lakes butter works well. I can't promise other brands will give you great results because it seems like some are watered down lately, but the Land o' Lakes was great. If using butter, use egg yolks in place of the whole egg. I made half a batch with butter and used only 1 very large egg yolk. If making a full batch with butter you may need to use 3 egg yolks rather than 2, but start with 2. If using salted butter, add only ¼ teaspoon of salt. If using unsalted, use the full teaspoon.
More Tips
- The recipe calls for bleached flour. If using unbleached flour the dough might have a dryer consistency.
- Measure the flour carefully and don’t pack it into the cup. If using a scale, you should need about 290 to 300 grams.
- It might be easier to make the dough in two half batches so that for the red dough, you can easily add the food coloring before adding the flour/salt mixture. To do this you will have to halve an egg. Just crack it into a little cup, beat with a fork and use about 2 tablespoons for each half of the dough. If making the butter version you can just use 1 large yolk in each half.
- If your dough is consistently breaking for some reason, work in a little extra egg yolk.
- You can shape the candy canes and chill the shaped canes until ready to bake if you need to.
Recipe
Candy Cane Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup shortening or butter (190 grams shortening or 228 grams butter)
- 1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar (110 grams)
- 1 large egg (or 2-3 egg yolks if using butter)
- 1 ½ teaspoons almond extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon salt (reduce to ¼ teaspoon if using salted butter)
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour (Gold Medal or Pillsbury bleached) (300 grams)
- 1 teaspoon red food coloring or as needed
- ½ cup crushed peppermint candy
- sugar (book said ½ cup, I used about a tablespoon)
- bits of chopped chocolate (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Have ready two baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
- Beat together the shortening and sugar just until blended, then beat in the egg and extracts until blended. Mix together the flour and salt then add to batter and stir to make a soft dough. You should have about 22 oz.
- Divide dough in half and add red food coloring to one half. Work it in to make a red dough. Good luck! It helps to use food grade disposable gloves.**
- Pinch of teaspoon size pieces of each color dough. Working with one piece at a time, roll into 4 inch worms so that you have a white worm and a red worm. Put them next to each other snuggly, then twist. Carefully turn the top down to make it look like a cane.
- For best results, make cookies one at a time. If you attempt to roll 48 strips of one color and 48 strips of another, the dough gets a bit dry and breaks during shaping. You'll have to hone your own method for this, but it's kind of fun.
- Arrange the beautiful candy cane shaped cookies on parchment lined trays and bake for about 9 minutes or however long it takes for the cookies to be set. While they are still warm, sprinkle with a mixture of crushed peppermint candy and sugar.
- Note: For the peppermint, the original recipe says to mix ½ cup crushed peppermint with ½ cup sugar. I used the ½ cup crushed peppermint but added only about a tablespoon of sugar and a few teaspoons of tiny chocolate shards that I had left from another project.
Anna says
Liz, I am so happy to hear that! I think Sue had the same situation. We were both really happy to find this recipe because the cookies are super special and have a wonderful texture and interesting blend of flavors. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. I've made them twice now. Still not great at shaping the canes, but I had a lot of fun. I hope you can find a vibrant red food coloring. I buy one called Super Red that I use for Red Velvet Cake. The Betty Crocker gel colors should work too.
Liz says
This makes me so happy. When I was very young, all the neighborhood moms would exchange cookies so we could have an assortment at Christmas. These are absolutely the cookies Mrs. S down the street would make, and our family never got the recipe from her. I can not wait to try these and show my sisters.
Sue K says
Wow! Your cookies look fantastic! I don’t know when but I will try them again. Your tips are really helpful and I will definitely try with Spectrum because the cookies I made with Crisco tasted awful.