Description
These chocolate cookies are soft and thick, and they’re topped with a peppermint vanilla buttercream full of crushed candy canes.
Ingredients
Scale
For the Cookies
- 1 1/4 cups butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
For the Frosting
- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp peppermint extract
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 10 candy canes
- 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
Instructions
- In a large bowl, use a hand mixer or stand mixer with the paddle attachment to cream the butter and sugar together until very light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
- Add the egg yolks, vanilla, and cooled melted chocolate and beat for 2 more minutes.
- In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt.
- Mix together with the stand mixer or hand mixer just until the dough begins to form clumps and come together. Then, use a spatula to fold the dough together until it forms into one ball. It should be thick but spreadable with the spatula.
- Transfer the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap.
- Form the dough into log shape; use your hands to spread it into a long log-ish shape down the middle of the plastic wrap lengthwise. Then, wrap one side of the plastic over the dough, pull the other side of plastic over that side, twist the ends closed, and roll the log out to smooth the sides into a cylindrical shape. The side it rests on will be flat; that’s okay.
- Chill the log of dough for at least 3 hours in the fridge or overnight.
- Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 5 minutes.
- Slice the dough into 1/2-inch thick rounds (again, it’s fine that one side is flatter; you can fix it later!).
- Place the cookies on parchment lined baking sheets 2 inches apart from each other.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes.
- Grab a circle cookie cutter that fits around one cookie.
- Immediately after removing the cookies from the oven, rotate the cookie cutter around each cookie one by one so that the cookie spins along the inside rim of the cookie cutter and forms back into a perfect circle shape.
- Using a circle cookie cutter that’s just slightly bigger than each cookie, place it around one cookie. Use a small circular object with straight sides and a flat bottom, like a soy sauce bottle cap or an olive oil bottle cap, and press it into the center of the cookie to make an indent, pressing only about halfway through the cookie. The edges of the cookie should press into the circle cookie cutter so that the cookie doesn’t crack around the sides. You can use a rounded object if it’s all your have to make an indent similar to that of a thumbprint cookie (see Bake Notes for other options).
- Let the cookies cool completely.
- Place the candy canes in a large Ziploc bag and seal it shut. Use a hammer, meat tenderizer, or something sturdy with a heavy bottom to crush the candy canes into very small pieces (no bigger than a pea). Set aside 1/4 cup of the crushed candy cane pieces to use to sprinkle on top of the cookies later.
- In a medium bowl, add the butter for the frosting, the powdered sugar, vanilla and peppermint extracts, and salt. Use a hand mixer or stand mixer to beat everything together until it forms a smooth, light, and thick buttercream, about 3 minutes.
- Add the rest of the crushed candy canes (minus the 1/4 cup that’s reserved), and beat just until incorporated.
- Put the icing into a Ziploc bag or piping bag, cut off the tip so the opening is about as big as your pinky finger, and fill the center of each cookie with frosting.
- Place the melted and cooled chocolate into another icing bag or Ziploc bag, and cut a very small opening (about as big as the tip of a pen or pencil). Drizzle the chocolate over each cookie.
- Sprinkle each cookie with the remaining candy cane pieces.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 20