Every now and then we all need a little shortcut...
I love baking from scratch, but sometimes I just feel like making a quick little something for us all to enjoy on the fly. And if I don't have any pre-made dough on hand, then that's when I give in to the store bought dough. My favorite store bought brand has always been Nestlé and I make sure that I have either a sugar cookie or chocolate chip roll (or sheet) in the fridge or freezer at all times.
So, here's a quick "cheat-n-eat" that is perfect for the Christmas season. Since peppermint is the flavor of the season...and I love peppermint, but hate when it overtakes a cookie...I'm using a sugar cookie with peppermint pieces for just an accent. Super simple and almost completely mess free!
Here we go.... Preheat the oven to 325. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Remember, we don't want to spend the rest of the night scrubbing candy off of a cookie sheet. Parchment paper = easy clean-up
Grab a package of your favorite brand of pre-made sugar cookie dough. Again, I choose Nestlé every time. Allow it to sit out on your counter for about 10 minutes. That will allow you to mold the dough much easier.
In the meantime, grab 2 candy canes (you can add another if needed), a plastic sandwich baggie and a mallet. (or something heavy to do some smashing with)
Place the candy canes in the plastic sandwich baggie. (poor things don't know what's about to hit them)
Now pickup your mallet, or apparatus of choice, and start whacking away.
You don't want the candy cane pieces to be like pixie dust, so don't go too crazy. Okay, a little bit of pixie dust wouldn't hurt, but try to make an array of different sized pieces. Trust me, it makes the cookies so much prettier.
Take a piece of the dough. In this case a square and roll it into a ball.
Take the ball of dough and dip it into the peppermint pieces. Now if you were my Auntie, you'd just walk away with the ball of candy covered dough and be happy. BUT we're not going for that here. These balls must be cooked!
Pop them one by one onto a cookie sheet...preferably lined with parchment paper. This way the candy pieces won't get stuck to your cookie sheet.
Now we just put them in the oven for 14-17 minutes, depending on the oven and how crispy you like your cookies. I went for 16 minutes...my husband probably would have preferred them at 14 minutes. (a little bit chewier)
Place the baked cookies onto a wire cooling rack for at least 5 minutes.
Then set them out and watch them disappear!
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