Not all cookies need to be overly sweet and heavy, even for the holidays. I prefer a lightly sweetened rich shortbread cookie over the others anytime. But that doesn’t mean you can’t dress shortbread cookies up a little and add some pizzazz to make them festive. These Homemade Peppermint Shortbread Cookies get most of their sweetness from the light icing on top, and of course the crushed peppermint- a perfect holiday combination! They make a great addition to cookie platters, buffets, or on their own!
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While these are made into a cute candy cane shape, you could cut these into any fun shape you wanted! You could make peppermint shortbread reindeer, Santa faces, or bells using holiday cookie cutters! Or you could go without cookie cutters and use a knife to cut your own custom shape!
HomemadePeppermint Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies
2 sticks butter, softened
¼ tsp. peppermint extract
1 cup brown sugar, packed
4 ½ cups all purpose flour
Icing
½ cup confectioners sugar
1- 3 tsp. milk
½ tsp peppermint extract
2-3 candy canes
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325°.
2. Crush 2-3 candy canes in blender, food processor or coffee grinder until nearly powder.
3. In the bowl of your stand or hand mixer combine butter, peppermint extract, and brown sugar until well mixed and fluffy.
4. Incorporate flour until well combined.
5. Roll out dough onto floured surface to between ¼” and ½” thickness.
6. Cut out into preferred shapes using a cookie cutter.
7. Carefully move cut out cookies to baking sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes, until edges are lightly golden.
8. Remove from oven and cool cookies completely.
9. Place confectioners sugar in a bowl and add milk 1 tsp. at a time until desired consistency has been reached. Normally I make this icing pretty thick, but if you want a very thin coat on your cookies, it can be looser.
10. Dip cooled cookies front down into icing.
11. Immediately sprinkle with crushed peppermint.
12. Spread out on waxed paper to dry. When dry, enjoy your delicious homemade peppermint shortbread cookies!
Homemade Peppermint Shortbread Cookies
- Category: Dessert
Description
These peppermint shortbread cookies have light icing and crushed peppermint on top- the perfect holiday combination!
Ingredients
- 2 sticks butter, softened
- ¼ tsp. peppermint extract
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 4 ½ cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup confectioners sugar
- 1– 3 tsp. milk
- ½ tsp peppermint extract
- 2–3 candy canes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°.
- Crush 2-3 candy canes in blender, food processor or coffee grinder until nearly powder.
- In the bowl of your stand or hand mixer combine butter, peppermint extract, and brown sugar until well mixed and fluffy.
- Incorporate flour until well combined.
- Roll out dough onto floured surface to between ¼” and ½” thickness.
- Cut out into preferred shapes using a cookie cutter.
- Carefully move cut out cookies to baking sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes, until edges are lightly golden.
- Remove from oven and cool cookies completely.
- Place confectioners sugar in a bowl and add milk 1 tsp. at a time until desired consistency has been reached. Normally I make this icing pretty thick, but if you want a very thin coat on your cookies, it can be looser.
- Dip cooled cookies front down into icing.
- Immediately sprinkle with crushed peppermint.
- Spread out on waxed paper to dry. When dry, enjoy your delicious homemade peppermint shortbread cookies!
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I was all ready to make these cookies and just realized that I don’t have enough powder sugar ?, but I will definitely be making these in a few days, thanks for the recipe! Deanna