Peppermint Cookies

Christmas is only two days away! Our home is looking and feeling like Christmas, and we’re all getting excited! And yes, this includes Tadpole as well. She’s been extra active since yesterday; dancing around to Christmas music, playing “push back” with me, and just being a little bundle of growing joy.

Today I did a bit of baking for the holidays and I used a cookie recipe I created myself. I thought I would share it with you all in case you’d like to make Peppermint Cookies too. They’re even milk free! Well you can use a butter or margarine that does have milk products in it, but since I can’t have milk, I use Nucoa margarine. It’s the only butter product I have been able to find in your everyday grocery story that is milk product free – no whey or lactose even!

Anyway! Here’s the Peppermint Cookie recipe. A little Christmas gift from me (and Tadpole) to all of you. Enjoy!

2 ¼ cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup of butter/margarine softened (2 sticks of butter – Nucoa)

¾ cup gradual sugar

¾ cups and 1 Tbs of packed brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

5-7 crushed peppermint candy canes

Preheat oven to 350°

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt together. In a large bowl mix the softened butter/margarine, gradual sugar, packed brown sugar, vanilla extract and eggs together. Then add the dry ingredients from the medium bowl into the large bowl. Mix until blended well.

Unwrap the 5 to 7 peppermint candy canes (depending on how peppermint-y you want your cookies to be). Put the candy canes into a plastic zip-lock bag and crush them into small bite size pieces. Add them to the cookie dough and mix well.

Drop teaspoon amount of cookie dough, 1 ½ to 2 inches apart from each other on a non-stick cookie sheet. Place on center rack in heated oven. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes, or until golden brown

Let them sit on the tray for a minute before you remove them to a cookie cooling rack. Use a baking spatula with a really nice edge. The cookies can be tricky to remove otherwise. Let cool and then enjoy!