Saturday 24 December 2011

How to: bake candy cane cookies

It's Christmas eve! I hope you are all having a lovely and relaxed day (I'm currently watching Pretty Woman... does that count as a Christmas film?). I thought I'd post this recipe up as it is suitably festive, and quick and easy to do - perfect if you are in need of a last minute gift!

Candy cane cookies! (aww). I used the basic biscuit recipe from BBC good food and tweaked it a little bit... 

Candy Cane Cookie tutorial

Turn your oven on to 180 degrees & gather the following ingredients:
  • 250g butter
  • 140g caster sugar
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • 300g plain flour
  • red food colouring
You'll also need a couple of flat baking trays lined with baking paper. 


Start by mixing the butter and sugar, then add the vanilla extract and egg yolk. Stir together until it is nice and smooth!


Add in the flour and mix your dough. It'll get a little tough to stir (and look like the photo above), so use your hands to knead it all together.


When it's nice and smooth split it into two and add red food colouring to one bowl. It only needed a couple of drops to turn this colour, so be careful not to add too much! If the mix is too soft you can stick it in the fridge for a little while (20 mins or so) until it firms up.

Candy Cane Cookie tutorial

Now cover your worktop with flour (to prevent the mixture sticking to the surface), and roll out the dough into long ropes (I just did this by hand).

Candy Cane Cookie tutorial

And start to twist them together.


When it's a suitable length, cut at both ends to neaten up, and curl the top round to form the candy cane shape. Use a spatula to move them onto the baking tray. Practice helps a lot, as you'll see between my first and second attempts (see above!).

Candy Cane Cookie tutorial

Space them out evenly on a baking tray (as they'll expand as they bake), and pop in the oven for 12 - 15 minutes.

Candy Cane Cookie tutorial

Once they are ready, carefully move them onto a wire rack to cool (they'll still be quite soft at this point so use a spatula to move them over). Once they've cooled completely you can pop them into a christmassy box or bag and give as gifts! (or eat them all by yourself). This recipe made 18 (quite large) cookies.

3 comments :

Thank you so much for commenting, it is lovely and really makes my day!

If you have any questions I will do my best to answer them quickly, or you can also tweet me @eversojuliet

Ta!