I originally made these Red Velvet Peppermint Christmas Cookies to be a part of to be a part of Christmas blog hop of sorts for Traci & Co. My ultimate intention in these was to be given out as neighbor gifts, or eaten by Mr. and Mrs. Claus on Christmas Eve. In my mind, I started off making everything from scratch. But then reality set in. (This post contains affiliate links.)
Even though I really wanted to make these from scratch, I realized I should be realistic in my goals. In the end, they turned out to work better with a little help from Betty.
In fact, if you make the cream cheese frosting with real cream cheese and butter (which is super easy and I normally would do), chances are very high your filling will mold before you get your gift to the neighbors. Or even worse, Santa might end up with tainted treats. Trust me, it’s happened to us before.
How to Make Red Velvet Peppermint Christmas Cookies
It might seem strange to use a cake batter to make cookies, but you’ll want to use one box of red velvet cake mix and follow the ingredient directions on the box. Hand stir everything together instead of mixing with an electric mixer.
One thing I like to change up is the oil. I like to use coconut oil instead of the vegetable oil cake mixes usually call for.
Next, you’ll want to spread the batter onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. One box of batter can cover 2 to 2.5 cookie sheets. You want to spread it VERY thin, as thinly as possible, because it will puff up when it cooks.
If you have a pastry gun like this one, you could squirt little quarter sized rounds on the cookie sheet and bake them that way. But I tried freehanding it and that did NOT work.
Cook using the cake mix package temperature directions. Start checking for doneness around 10-12 minutes or so. You don’t want to overcook it which makes it turn more brown than red.
Once it’s cooked, let it cool then cut out circles using a small round cookie cutter… or a shot glass which is what I used since I didn’t have a small cookie cutter.
Set all your little red velvet circles aside in a bowl.
Next, you’ll want to take your cream cheese frosting and put it in a pastry bag using the smallest tip. If you don’t have a pastry bag (which I don’t), a quart zip top bag works perfectly. Just put the frosting in the bag, then cut a small hole out of a corner of the bag like below.
Now you’ll start to make little sandwiches out of the red velvet cookie circles. Put a decent amount of frosting on one circle, then top with the other circle.
Once you put the two circles together, you’ll still need to make a little circle of frosting around the sandwich for the peppermint to stick to.
Now on to the peppermint. I like to use red and green for color, but you could use one or the other if you wanted to as well. Put them in a zip top bag and bang the crap out of them with something heavy. I find the meat mallet works great, as well as a rolling pin. Plus the kids LOVE helping out with this part!
Put the crushed peppermint into some sort of vessel (plate, bowl, dish, anything like that). Then roll your frosted sandwiches around in it. This will give it a nice crunch, texture, and flavor, as well as look pretty.
Now this may sounds strange, but if you can, let the cookies sit out on parchment paper overnight. If you try to put them in a mason jar freshly made they will all just stick together.
And some more fun if you’re ready to be creative. I like to put them in a mason jar with these cool chalkboard labels. Simply take a chalk marker and write something clever on it for a neighbor gift. Tie a simple ribbon around the jar, and voila! You’re set to go.
Best of all, these little cute-as-a-button-cookies are really tasty. Can’t beat that!
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