xmas week 2024 - small batch chocolate candy cane cookies

xmas week 2024 - small batch chocolate candy cane cookies

• 7 Dec 2024

Each Christmas I make batches of cookies to share with friends and neighbours. I don't like to repeat myself, so every year I audition a new cookie recipe. I found this Jessica Brook recipe on instagram and the cookies looked very appetising, so I thought I'd give them a go.

The cookies are an easy to make, mix and melt one bowl affair so they take no time to put together but they do need some chill time. The end result is a deeply dark and chocolately cookie with a brownie texture topped with crunchy pieces of candy cane. 

I've baked with candy canes before and unfortunately they melt when baked, leading to an unattractive looking result. You have 2 options - drizzle the cooled cookie with melted chocolate and press the chopped candy cane pieces into the chocolate or press the candy cane pieces into the partially baked cookies. As the cookie is already chocolate dense, and all the more delicious because of this, I went with the latter option.

Here’s the recipe for you which makes 8 cookies although of course you can double or even treble the recipe if you like. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Small batch chocolate candy cane cookies – makes 8 

Ingredients
1 egg

60g melted, cooled unsalted butter
¼ cup (55g) firmly packed brown sugar
2 tbsp caster sugar
½ cup plain flour (75g) 
⅓ cup (55g) Dutch cocoa powder
¼ tsp bicarb soda
60g chopped dark chocolate
Salt flakes to sprinkle
4 candy canes, chopped into 1 cm pieces

Method
Whisk the egg, the cooled butter and the sugars together. Add the flour, cocoa and bicarbonate soda and mix well to combine. Fold through the chocolate pieces and refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes to firm. 

Preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional and line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper or silicone. 

Scoop the dough into 8 portions and place on the prepared tray alllowing plenty of room to spread. Sprinkle with salt flakes before placing the tray in the oven on the centre rack. Bake for 6 - 7 minutes, then flatten each cookie a little and stud the warm cookie dough with the candy cane pieces. Return to the oven and bake for another 5 minutes - the cookies should still feel soft to the touch.

Remove from the oven, tap the tray to flatten the cookies, and if you like you can ‘scoot’ the cookies with a large round cookie cutter to neaten the edges, then rest for 10 minutes before placing the cookies onto a wire rack to cool completely. Remember the candy canes will be hot so take care when doing this. The cookies will keep for up to a week in an airtight container if they last that long! They're really delicious.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Xmas week 2024.

Bye for now,

Jillian