Peppermint Christmas Cookies

* Pamela *'s Note:

This recipe is a great one to make for Christmas Cookie Exchanges. These colorful cookies add a real festive treat to any holiday platter. I made these for the first time for a cookie exchange and I made a double batch of green and a double batch of red.

• Total Time: 15 mins
• Prep Time: 5 mins
• Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 30

• ¾ cup soft butter
• ¾ cup icing sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 teaspoons peppermint extract
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon green food coloring or 1 teaspoon red food coloring (paste colouring gives a deep shade)
• 1 ¾ cups flour
• 30 chocolateHershey's chocolate kisses or 30 chocolate rosettes or 30 chocolate wafers

Directions:

1. Cream together butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and salt.
2. Add coloring and mix well to distribute color evenly.
3. Stir in flour.
4. Shape in 1 inch balls.
5. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Flatten each by pressing a chocolate in each center.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, or until bottom starts to brown.

Reviews

[CherryRed]

1/15/08: These cookies came out really good, but I deviated so much from the recipe that I can only give it 4 stars. First, I added some extra flour to the dough because the consistency was too mushy and wet. Then I added a whole bunch of extra peppermint extract to make the mint flavor come through. When that didn't do enough, I crushed a bunch of candy canes and mixed them into the batter. Then it was perfect! I also had to add the Hershey kisses about 2-3 minutes before the cookies came out of the oven, as opposed to putting them on in the beginning. The chocolate got all bubbley and the kisses' tops sort of burned when I put the kisses on first. Overall, a pretty good recipe - it just needs some tweaking. Thanks Pamela! UPDATE 12/18/08: I made these again and ran into the same problems as before. This time, I recorded the amounts I changed. I ended up using 2 1/2c flour, 1/4c extra sugar, and 1T + 1t peppermint extract. I also crushed 6 candy canes and mixed them into the dough. Also had to refrigerate the dough before baking so the cookies didn't spread into flattened blobs. Still tastes great though!

[singn8]

12/22/10: I made these cookies yesterday, and they are amazing!! I have to agree with CherryRed because I had to make a lot of adjustments from the original recipe. The dough as written comes out very sticky. I added more flour and some more powdered sugar as well. I also crushed candy canes and added them to the batter. I also refrigerated the dough to let it firm up. Bottom line, this is a good base recipe and with some tweaking can make some fabulous cookies.

[Chef #531277]

I made this recipe both as it is and with the suggestions other reviews have offered, and both times these cookies turned out flavorless. If you can get passed one bite, the chocolate is the only redeeming taste to this recipe.