Soulitinerary

This Peppermint Cookie is soft, buttery, and perfectly balanced with cool mint flavor!

A Peppermint Cookie should taste like winter wrapped in butter and sugar—cool mint cutting through sweetness, edges just crisp enough, centers soft enough to linger on your tongue!

The Secret Personality Of Peppermint Cookies

What You’re Getting

• Crisp edges that lightly crackle when you bite
• Soft, chewy center that stays tender for days
• Real peppermint flavor that tastes fresh, not medicinal
• Chocolate + candy cane sparkle, because you’re not baking for minimalists

What You’re Avoiding

• Dry, crumbly cookies
• Peppermint overload
• Candy cane turning into sticky syrup puddles
• Flat cookies that look like cookie-shaped regrets

Ingredients

The Cookie Dough

• Unsalted butter – 1 cup (226 g / 2 sticks), softened but still cool. (Soft enough to press a fingerprint, not melted. Melted butter makes flat cookies.)
• Light brown sugar – 1 cup (200 g), packed. (This is your chew and moisture insurance.)
• Granulated sugar – ½ cup (100 g)
• Large eggs – 2, room temperature. (Room temp blends cleaner and helps the dough emulsify.)
• Vanilla extract – 2 tsp
• Peppermint extract – ¾ tsp. (Not a typo. Peppermint is loud. This amount tastes clean and balanced.)
• All-purpose flour – 2¾ cups (330 g), spooned and leveled. (Don’t scoop straight from the bag unless you enjoy dry cookies.)
• Cornstarch – 2 tsp. (This is the soft-center magic.)
• Baking soda – 1 tsp
• Baking powder – ½ tsp
• Fine sea salt – ¾ tsp

The “Holiday Swagger”

• Semi-sweet chocolate chips – 1 cup (170 g). (Or chopped chocolate if you want puddles.)
• Crushed candy canes or peppermint candies – ¾ cup, divided. (½ cup goes in the dough, ¼ cup for topping.)

Optional But Worth It

• White chocolate chips – ½ cup (85 g). (If you want that classic “peppermint bark” energy.)
• Flaky salt – tiny pinch per cookie. (If you want people to ask, “What is that…?” in a good way.)

Peppermint Candy Crushing Without Ruining Your Life

• Put candy canes in a zip-top bag.
• Press out air and seal.
• Cover the bag with a kitchen towel.
• Smash with a rolling pin in short taps, not wild swings.
• You want small shards and little crunchy bits, not peppermint dust. Dust melts fast and turns sticky in the oven. Shards stay pretty and crunchy.
• If your candy becomes dust anyway, don’t panic. Use it only as a topping, not inside the dough.

The Dough Ritual That Makes These Peppermint Cookies Perfect!

1. Cream Butter And Sugars Like You Mean It

Add softened butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar to your mixer. Beat on medium-high for 2–3 minutes until it looks:

• Lighter in color
• Fluffy
• Like it’s holding tiny air bubbles

This step decides whether your cookies taste bakery-soft or “fine, I guess.”

Scrape down the bowl halfway through. Butter likes to hide on the sides like it’s avoiding responsibility.

2. Add Eggs, Vanilla, And Peppermint In The Right Order

Add eggs one at a time, mixing 20 seconds after each. Then add:

• Vanilla extract
• Peppermint extract
• Mix for 15 seconds.

Now stop and scrape the bowl again. This prevents streaks of butter and sugar that later bake into weird greasy patches.

3. Mix Dry Ingredients Separately (So You Don’t Overmix)

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

• Flour
• Cornstarch
• Baking soda
• Baking powder
• Salt

Whisk for 20 seconds. This distributes the leaveners evenly so you don’t get one cookie puffing like a muffin while another one lies flat in despair.

4. Combine Wet And Dry Without Killing The Texture

• Add the dry ingredients to the wet in two additions, mixing on low.
• Stop the mixer when you still see a few flour streaks. You’ll finish mixing by hand. That’s how you avoid tough cookies.

5. Fold In Chocolate And Candy Like A Gentle Professional

Using a spatula, fold in:

• Semi-sweet chips
• Optional white chips
• ½ cup crushed candy canes (save the rest)

Fold until evenly distributed. Don’t mash. Don’t overwork. This dough isn’t a punching bag.

6. Chill The Dough (Yes, Even If You’re Impatient)

Cover the bowl and chill for 45 minutes.

Why:

• Butter firms up so cookies don’t spread too much
• Flour hydrates so the dough bakes thicker
• Flavors deepen so it tastes like a real holiday cookie

If you chill longer (up to 24 hours), even better. Your future self will thank you.

Baking With Holiday Precision

1. Preheat And Prep Like You’ve Done This Forever

• Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
• Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Don’t grease the pan. Grease causes spreading.

2. Scoop Uniform Cookies (So They Bake Evenly)

• Use a 2-tablespoon cookie scoop (or measure roughly 40–45 g per cookie).
• Roll into smooth balls. Smooth dough balls bake prettier, with cleaner cracks.

Place 8 cookies per sheet with space between them. These cookies spread.

3. The Candy Cane Topping Trick (So It Stays Pretty)

• Right before baking, press a pinch of the reserved crushed candy cane onto the top of each dough ball.
• Press gently. You’re not flattening the cookie, just giving it a sparkly hat.

4. Bake Time That Actually Works

Bake 10–12 minutes.

Here’s the real test:

• Edges look set
• Centers look slightly underbaked and puffy
• Tops have soft cracks

If you wait until the centers look fully done, you’ll bake out the chew. Pull them earlier. Cookies finish cooking on the tray.

5. The “Pan Bang” Move For Beautiful Crinkles

• At minute 11, open the oven and tap the tray once on the oven rack.
• Not hard. Just a confident little bang.

This makes the centers settle and creates those lovely cracks.

6. Cool Correctly (So They Don’t Fall Apart)

Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes. Then move to a cooling rack.

If you try to move them immediately, they’ll break and you’ll eat them “for quality control,” which is a slippery slope.

The Chocolate Drizzle Finish (Makes Them Look Bakery-Level)

This is optional, but if you want people to say “Oh my god,” do it.

Drizzle Ingredients

• White chocolate – ½ cup, melted

Optional: A tiny pinch of peppermint dust or extra candy cane bits

Drizzle Method

• Melt white chocolate in 20-second bursts in the microwave, stirring each time.
• Drizzle over cooled cookies using a spoon or a zip-top bag with the corner snipped.
• Sprinkle a few candy cane shards on top while the chocolate is wet.
• Let set for 20 minutes.

Now your cookies look like they belong on a holiday magazine cover!!!

Serving Ideas That Make These Feel Special

• Serve with hot cocoa and a pinch of flaky salt on top
• Make cookie ice cream sandwiches with vanilla or chocolate
• Crumble over yogurt with a drizzle of honey for a fancy snack
• Stack them in a tin and gift them like you own a bakery!!

Once you bake a Peppermint Cookie like this—soft in the center, crisp at the edges, chocolatey, minty, and unapologetically festive—you don’t go back to bland holiday cookies. You keep this recipe close, you bake a double batch, and you pretend you made them “just because,” even though you absolutely made them to watch people’s faces light up after the first bite.