These Twisted Candy Cane Cookies are just a twist on the Rainbow Play Dough Cookies recipe we used for St. Patrick's Day! (that post has been one of my most popular posts on this blog!) I've been wanting to do a Christmas version of them for a while so this year, we made them again with just red and green dough and made them very Christmas-y!
I took pictures while making these Candy Cane Cookies so I could share a step-by-step recipe with you!
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| Twisted Candy Cane Cookies |
Ingredients
3/4 cup softened butter
3 ounces softened cream cheese
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
red & green gel food colouring
How to Make Twisted Candy Cane Cookies
Note: Make sure you set your cream cheese and butter out on the counter ahead of time, so that they won't be hard- I hate when I want to make a recipe and realize I needed soft butter and have to wait for it! We used Gay Lea butter when making this recipe (I'm excited to be a #GayLeaMom starting this month, and will have some more fun recipes coming your way, using their products!). As a Gay Lea Mom, I'm finding out details about Gay Lea that I hadn't known about before- happy to know that they use only pure and preservative-free cream from 100% Canadian milk (which, by the way, is produced by their 1,200 local dairy farmers!)
Instructions:
Add softened butter, cream cheese and sugar to mixer and mix until fluffy.
Add egg and vanilla and mix in until mixture is smooth.
Katrina loved it when we added the vanilla (I took a picture of her smelling it while it mixed- haha!)
Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl (flour, baking powder, and salt). Add them to the other mixture in the mixer and mix until you have soft dough. Divide the dough into two bowls. Add red food colouring to one and green to the other.
The girls wanted to mix the colouring in by hand but that took quite a while and was pretty difficult!
When they had had enough of that, we pulled out the hand mixer and were finished in no time!
Next, we put the dough in bowls and covered with plastic wrap.
You'll put the bowls in the fridge for at least 2 hours (2 is enough, but if you need more time, it's fine to leave it in there)
When you're ready to pull the dough out of the fridge, set your oven to 350 degrees F. This next part is the most fun part! You just need a clean workspace and you can let your kids have fun with the dough as if it's play dough! We all sat at the table together and created things. They needed a little guidance from me (when cookies got too thick or too thin), and we all had a lot of fun!
How to Create a Candy Cane:
1. Roll 2 "snakes"
2. Twist snakes together
3. pinch ends and bend into a candy cane shape
I thought I would make a lot of candy canes, but I found that these striped cookie "bars" were easier to make a lot of, so I made more of them.
How to Create Red & Green Bars:
1. Roll out a bunch of long red & green "snakes" (I did 6-8 "snakes" per "bar")
2. Squish them together well, so that they won't come apart.
3. Cut bars to whatever thickness you like.
4. Squish together any rough edges and make sure it won't fall apart.
(If it doesn't come apart when you pick it up, it should be okay once it's baked)
The girls came up with several other creative ideas as you can see below (including a free-hand reindeer by Talia! :)
Just place them on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 5-8 minutes (depending on how big you made your cookies). Just watch for them to get slightly brown edges, then pull them out.
Let them cool and then store them in a freezer bag in the freezer until you're ready for Christmas cookies! :)
These are going to look so cute on a plate of Christmas cookies and I love that you can tell some work and care went into them :) The girls absolutely LOVE it when we make these cookies- it's a great memory for them! I hope you get a chance to try these this year, or at least pin this post for future use! The great thing about them is that you can customize them for different seasons just by changing the colour!
You can check out the Gay Lea website for great recipes and more information on their products. They also send out monthly newsletters featuring great tips and coupons!
Disclosure: I am part of the Gay Lea Ambassador Campaign with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.
We originally tried this recipe from here and here.
Here's a link to the post we did on the Rainbow Version of these Cookies
Instructions:
Add softened butter, cream cheese and sugar to mixer and mix until fluffy.
Add egg and vanilla and mix in until mixture is smooth.
Katrina loved it when we added the vanilla (I took a picture of her smelling it while it mixed- haha!)
Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl (flour, baking powder, and salt). Add them to the other mixture in the mixer and mix until you have soft dough. Divide the dough into two bowls. Add red food colouring to one and green to the other.
The girls wanted to mix the colouring in by hand but that took quite a while and was pretty difficult!
When they had had enough of that, we pulled out the hand mixer and were finished in no time!
Next, we put the dough in bowls and covered with plastic wrap.
You'll put the bowls in the fridge for at least 2 hours (2 is enough, but if you need more time, it's fine to leave it in there)
When you're ready to pull the dough out of the fridge, set your oven to 350 degrees F. This next part is the most fun part! You just need a clean workspace and you can let your kids have fun with the dough as if it's play dough! We all sat at the table together and created things. They needed a little guidance from me (when cookies got too thick or too thin), and we all had a lot of fun!
How to Create a Candy Cane:
1. Roll 2 "snakes"
2. Twist snakes together
3. pinch ends and bend into a candy cane shape
 |
| Play Dough Cookies |
I thought I would make a lot of candy canes, but I found that these striped cookie "bars" were easier to make a lot of, so I made more of them.
How to Create Red & Green Bars:
1. Roll out a bunch of long red & green "snakes" (I did 6-8 "snakes" per "bar")
2. Squish them together well, so that they won't come apart.
3. Cut bars to whatever thickness you like.
4. Squish together any rough edges and make sure it won't fall apart.
(If it doesn't come apart when you pick it up, it should be okay once it's baked)
The girls came up with several other creative ideas as you can see below (including a free-hand reindeer by Talia! :)
Just place them on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 5-8 minutes (depending on how big you made your cookies). Just watch for them to get slightly brown edges, then pull them out.
Let them cool and then store them in a freezer bag in the freezer until you're ready for Christmas cookies! :)
.%20by%20www.RaisingMemories.com%20(Christmas%20Baking%20you%20can%20do%20with%20your%20kids!))
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You can check out the Gay Lea website for great recipes and more information on their products. They also send out monthly newsletters featuring great tips and coupons!
Disclosure: I am part of the Gay Lea Ambassador Campaign with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.
We originally tried this recipe from here and here.
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That looks like so much fun! I just had to take away all of the real play dough because my four year old insists on eating it. I can't decide if that makes this the perfect activity, or one I should hold off a year on. Either way, awesome recipe which I will be pinning.
ReplyDeletehaha That's a tough call ;) You let them eat this dough and then they get their hands on real play doh and what do they do ;) Maybe if you explain it really well... ;)
DeleteI love this! the fact that the kids can play and eat it too is a plus in my books.
ReplyDeleteI've made candy cane cookies before but never thought of the striped bars idea, thanks! Your daughter looks like she is having a blast, love that photo of her sniffing!
ReplyDeleteThese cookies are so adorable! I love that the kids can have fun in the kitchen helping out too. Your girls look like they are having so much fun and the cookies turned out perfectly :)
ReplyDeleteI've seen these recipes before but never read them. I didn't know that they had cream cheese! I love cream cheese, yum! lol I'm totally pinning this so I can make these with my daughter!
ReplyDeleteThis is so amazing! I love that cookies idea and my girls will love this! They love to cook :D
ReplyDeleteThose are super cute! Great idea for kids of all ages!
ReplyDeleteLove this!! I must try baking up some next stormy days with the kiddies :)
ReplyDeleteI would love to make these for my boys! They would love to help. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is such a neat recipe and hands on for the kids,they are going to enjoy making some fun treats !
ReplyDeleteThese look like so much fun-thanks for sharing!
ReplyDelete