We have now reached the final recipe in our ‘Festive Flavours’ series. Congratulations go to Lana B. this week, who is a courier on the Just Eat network, for submitting her delicious recipe for ‘Candy Cane Cookies’.
Lana says;
‘This recipe reminds me of my childhood. My mother was an absolute saint, her favourite time of the year was Christmas and even with a full time job and me to look after, and eventually 3 grandchildren, every year she would do mountains of christmas baking – shortbread, gingerbread men, gingerbread houses, and of course – the candy cane cookies.
These were a favourite of mine every year when I was a small child as they were fun-to-make biscuits for kids. You roll the dough into ‘snakes’ then twist them together. My mother just made the dough, and the kids would do the rest. Additionally, because of their shape, you could hang them on the christmas tree and eat them on Christmas day right off the tree.
My mother passed away just after her last christmas in 2019, and I’ve started making these again last year just last year. Try the cookies – especially if you have kids to entertain!’.
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter or margarine
- ½ cup shortening
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. red food colouring
- 1 egg
- 1½ tsp. almond extract
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 ½ cups white flour
Method
- Cream butter and shortening together, add icing sugar, beat until mixture is light, add the egg.
- With the mixer on low speed add about 1½ cups of flour. Continue to add flour until dough is firm enough to work with. Divide dough in half.
- Colour one half with the ½ tsp. red food colouring. Mix and blend until dough is uniform in colour.
- Now for the fun part. Take a small portion of plain coloured dough and form into a thin roll about 11/2 inches long. Then take the same size small portion of the coloured dough and do the same.
- Now, place the 2 pieces of formed dough next to each other and twist them together and form into candy cane. Continue in this manner with the rest of the cookie dough.
- Place the cookies on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Leave about a 2 inch space between them.
- Bake at a 375 oven for about 9 minutes or until the cookie is set. Cool slightly before moving them with a lifter to a cooling rack.
