Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Traitorous Candy Canes!*

This recipe has been taken from the Williams Sonoma Favourite Cookies book, and is titled Peppermint Candy Cookies. They're delightful, and the first time I made them I ate three in a row and felt disgusting but regretted nothing. Williams Sonoma predicts this batter will make 24 cupcakes, mine yielded 28 but I am guessing you could make anywhere between 20 and 30 depending on the size you go for.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Ingredients

Cookies:

1 1/4 cups/200g plain flour

3/4 cup/185g granulated sugar

3/4 cup/70g Dutch process cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup/185g unsalted butter at room temperature

1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk

1 tsp peppermint extract

Topping:

2 x 200g bars of white chocolate

1 Tbsp butter, divided in half

1/2 tsp peppermint extract, divided in half

Red food dye

Instructions:

For the Cookies:

Preheat the oven to 375F/190C and line a baking sheet with baking paper or silpat

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt and whisk by hand

Then, using a paddle attachment, add the butter and beat on low speed until fluffy (c.3mins)

Add the eggs and peppermint extract and beat on medium speed until the dough comes together

Follow the stages of mess, from sand to dirt to gravel before reaching faeces (I'm sorry, fluffy)

Using your palms, roll tablespoons of dough into balls and drop them onto a baking sheet leaving 2 inches between each. Using your hands, gently flatten the balls slightly

Bake until firm to the touch, c.8-10 minutes

Be careful opening the oven! That combination of hot chocolate and peppermint extract will really sting your eyes

Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and let cool on the pan for about ten minutes before taking them off the baking sheet to cool completely

(I use the insert from my grill pan as a cooling rack and it works just fine)

For the Topping:

Set up two double boilers, and in each one gently melt 200g white chocolate, 1/2 Tbsp butter and 1/4 tsp peppermint extract

Add red food dye to one of these, so that you have one white and one red topping

Set the cookies on a sheet of grease proof paper on a flat surface with a sheet of foil underneath for double protection

Trust me, it's messy

In any pattern you like, drizzle the white and red dyed chocolate over the cookies for a decorative effect

I used a piping bag to do this. Noticing that the red was significantly thicker than the white, I piped on a coat of red:

And then a coat of white:

Dear lord it was messy. I had white chocolate defying gravity and going over the top of the piping bags, all over my hands and arms. I'd like to think this looks a bit like if Jackson Pollack made cookies...

Allow the white chocolate topping to cool and set completely before eating

*Candy Canes here in the UK are not easy to find (although I've been told many times when bitching about this that they're sold in Lidl), so when I saw them in Starbucks I seized my moment and spent close to £9 on candy canes. I took them home to find out they're strawberry flavoured and not peppermint. EUGHHH! I would like to know who is responsible for this abomination so I can send them a strongly worded letter! These disgusting imposters were unusable for me for this recipe, but they still make a festive cover.