This recipe comes from Lisa Gunderman, who lives in the Canadian Province of Quebec. “Santa is very partial to these cookies,” she says. At least four generations of her family have looked forward to them as ;a Christmas treat.
Ingredients for Christmas Candy Cane Cookies
This recipe makes four dozen cookies:
- 1 cup butter (or half butter, half margarine)
- 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 egg
- 1½ teaspoons almond extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2½ cups flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup crushed peppermint candy
- Additional milk and confectioner’s sugar for glaze
Thoroughly mix first five ingredients, then sift flour and salt together and stir in.
Forming and Baking Candy Canes
- Divide dough into halves. Add one teaspoon of red food colouring to one half of it
- Roll 1 teaspoon of each colour dough into a strip about four inches long
- Place strips side by side, lightly press together and twist like rope
- Place on ungreased cookie sheet
- Curve tops of strips down to form each cane handle
- Bake at 375
The candy canes are finished off with a glaze of milk and confectioner’s sugar, then sprinkled with ½ cup of peppermint candy.
A Family Tradition
"My grandma and my mom and her two sisters started making Candy Cane Cookies every year when my mom was a little girl,” Lisa reports. “They often made them on Christmas Eve day, which was also my grandparents’ wedding anniversary,” she says.
Lisa’s mom carried on the tradition with her and her brother, who is, she teases, “especially talented at eating them!” Lisa now makes them for her husband and children, adding that “Christmas just isn’t Christmas without them.”
Fellowship and Food
This recipe is from Fellowship and Food, a cookbook produced by worshippers at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Quebec City, the oldest Anglican Cathedral outside Great Britain. This cookbook contains several recipes with an international flavor and many of them are accompanied by a story.
Source:
- Fellowship and Food, with permission from editor Joanna Woodson Foust. The cookbook may be ordered from the Parish of Quebec, 31 rue Desjardins, Quebec, QC, Canada G1R 4M3. A donation of $24 covers the book, postage and handling.
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