When I think about the flavors of the holiday season, peppermint is always one that comes to mind! And if you’ve been here before, you know how much I LOVE anything chocolate mint (see HERE or HERE). But today I’m sharing my recipe for peppermint cutout cookies! They give us all the fun flavor of a candy cane but in the soft, chewy sugar cookie texture we LOVE! And while vanilla sugar cookies will always reign during the holidays, it’s fun to play with fun flavors of the season. Plus, if you serve these to your family or friends, it will be an unexpected flavor, setting your cookies apart from all the rest! Let’s jump into this fun flavor and design!
Cutters & Design
I have to be honest with you, I’ve had this cookie set designed in my mind for over a year but just finally had time to create it! And it turned out just as stunning as I had hoped. I used THIS cutter set which I’ve used for all kinds of other themed cookie sets, so I love the versatility! I also made some smaller circle cookies using a cutter from my circle set. My circle cutters get used on almost a daily basis, so it’s worth having a good set like THIS one. Here are the cookies before decorating!
For decorating, I used our go-to royal icing recipe HERE and used Chefmaster Super Red for coloring. I flooded half of the spiral sections red and half white. As soon as I flooded each white section, I added fine, white sanding sugar; my favorite is THIS one from Walmart because it is much finer and more sparkly than other brands! Then into my dehydrator all the cookies went for quick setting.
Once dry, the white cookies were done! For the red ones, I used my airbrush and THIS stencil to add the candy cane pattern. I love how easy it is to add awesome patterns to your cookies with an airbrush. For the center cookie, I used THIS stencil and scraped on royal icing. If you’d like more information on that technique, see THIS post. Overall, this set of peppermint cutout cookies turned out beautiful after using just a few different techniques! That said, these are delicious plain or iced, but I love how the vanilla royal icing blends with the peppermint, so I prefer these iced!
FLAVOR
My secret weapon when it comes to these cookies is LorAnn Natural Peppermint Bakery Emulsion. The flavor is so amazing, and I use this emulsion is SO many of my recipes, especially during the holiday season. If you’re not familiar with emulsions versus extracts, THIS article is super helpful. But in short, emulsions are water-based instead of alcohol-based, like extracts. So, when subjected to high heat during baking, the flavors don’t “bake out” like extracts do. You’re then left with a much more full, rich flavor. Can you use a peppermint extract for this recipe? Yes, but you’ll get a fuller flavor with the emulsion. Totally your preference!
Recipe for Delightful Peppermint Cutout Cookies
Without further ado, please see the recipe for these wonderful cookies below. They are such a fun flavor to celebrate the season and are SO perfectly paired with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate. I hope you and your family love these as much as we do! I’ve also included a gallery of photos from this pretty set below the recipe that I hope you enjoy!
Peppermint Cutout Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226 g) Unsalted Butter Room Temperature
- 1 cup (224 g) Granulated Sugar
- 1.5 tsp Peppermint Baking Emulsion (I use LorAnn's brand)
- 1 Egg Room Temperature
- 2 tsp (9.58 g) Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp (3 g) Salt
- 3 cups (420 g) All-Purpose Flour
Instructions
- If I know I’ll be baking, I pull my unsalted butter out of the fridge the night before to get to room temp. But if you’re baking spontaneously, no worries, just zap your butter in the microwave on half-power for about 12 seconds.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- I use parchment paper sheets on my cookie sheets and reuse them for all my batches that day.
- In your mixer bowl (or large bowl with hand-mixer) cream butter and sugar until smooth, at least 2 minutes
- Beat in peppermint emulsion and egg
- In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, salt and flour. Add to wet ingredient mixing bowl a little at a time.
- Mix until thoroughly blended.
- Chilling the dough is not necessary! I have tried many different ways of rolling out dough and always come back to the old-fashioned way; a sheet of wax paper that’s been floured.
- I usually divide the dough into 3 chunks and roll out each onto a floured surface and cut. In my experience, this dough works best for cookies at 1/4″ thick. I use my Joseph Joseph rolling pin which does the measuring for me – genius!
- Bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes, depending on size of cookie. I also suggest baking similar-sized cookies together.
- Cool cookies on cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to cooling rack.
Notes
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