Friday, November 18, 2011

Pink Peppermint Tea Cookies


In the kitchen baking once again. This time I've been bitten by the cookie bug. Or rather, I bit into a store bought peppermint tea cookie and thought I could do better. So I have! Besides, a batch of cookies are quite over due. I'm sure folks are starting to ponder their Christmas goodie-boxes and these are a festive play on those powdered tea cookie gems. 

Besides, I have a gnome demanding cookies of me. And no, I won't explain that. 




Today's recipe is a play on what many of us know as tea cookies, Russian tea cookies, or Mexican wedding cookies, etc. These little powdered gems of crisp, pink buttery short dough are studded through with bits of peppermint candy rather than nuts.  The result is an addictive little cookie that suddenly disappears and leaves your thighs and butt smeared with a multitude of powdered sugar hand prints. 

Napkins are so overrated. 



Pink Peppermint Tea Cookies
yields roughly 40 cookies
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 drop red food coloring gel
1 1/4 teaspoons peppermint extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1/4 teaspoon salt 
2 tablespoons crushed peppermint candies
1 tablespoon very coarse red sugar*

1 cup powdered sugar for coating

*I recommend India Tree Holiday Red sugar for its huge grains. We're adding coarse sugar to the mix as the crushed candy canes disappear in the dough, leaving folks confused and wondering what the invisible crunchy bits are. Add speckles of red sugar and suddenly the cookie makes sense--and it looks pretty darn good too. 

Preheat your oven to 350°F and arrange the oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Line two pans with parchment or silicone baking liners. 

Cube up your butter and let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes to soften. You don't want it too soft for this recipe, just warm enough that you can work with it. 

In your mixer equipped with the paddle, combine the butter and sugar and beat on medium high speed for three-four minutes until smooth and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and add the drop of red food coloring and peppermint extract, beat again until well mixed, scraping down the bowl as needed. 


While that is going on, combine the flours, salt, crushed candy and red sugar together. 

Add the flour mixture to your mixing bowl of what is essentially pink peppermint butter cream frosting and mix on low speed to combine. Scrape down the sides as needed. 

Once the dough has is evenly mixed and has just come together, stop beating. 


Roll the dough into balls just under 1" (about 17g each). Collect the balls on a plate and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Once chilled, arrange the balls on your baking sheet, leaving 2" of space between each. 

Bake the pans for 12-15 minutes, rotating once half way through baking until the cookies have a golden blush and the bottoms are brown. 

Allow the cookies to cool completely on a wire wrack before coating with powdered sugar. To coat: add the cup of powdered sugar to a large bowl or plastic bag and add the cookies, a few at a time. Toss gently  to coat and then repeat with the remaining cookies. 


Store the cookies in a single layer (or layered between parchment) for up to 4 days at room temperature in an air tight container. 

Enjoy the cookies!

As for my slow pace of blogging of late: I've been working on another wonderful cake recipe this month and I had hoped to have a cake ready for today. Unfortunately though, the death of my much needed dishwasher has inhibited my ability to use every dish in my house to test and retest recipes. Hopefully I'll have it sorted by the next blog post. Until then, I hope everyone has a very happy weekend. 





37 comments:

  1. These are so pretty! I bet they're delicious too

    http://chicgeekery.blogspot.com/

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  2. Gnomes do love their cookies, and these look perfect!

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  3. These cookies look beautiful, and delicious! What is the purpose of the rice flour in the dry ingredients?

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  4. I love how dainty these cookies look

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  5. Kim,

    Rice flour has no gluten forming properties, so it helps keep the cookie light and tender. If you lack rice flour, corn starch will do the same job. Though, I tend to use slightly less corn starch in my short doughs, roughly 1/4 cup would work here.

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  6. Beautiful cookies. I look forward to trying your recipe. Thanks for sharing.

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  7. These cookies are so lovely! i falled in love at first bite!

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  8. absolutely gorgeous cookies! mexican wedding cookies are a favorite at christmas time & the peppermint adds an even better seasonal flavor! plus, who doesn't love a pink cookie coated in powdered sugar?! i'm definitely making these this weekend. thanks so much ms.humble! :)

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  9. Very cute pink cookies.. and seems delicious too. After the first bite, I bet everybody will be surprised for its pink and peppermint taste. Will make one this weekend. Thanks a lot for the bright idea and recipe Ms. Humble.

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  10. So cute! These would be amazing with some peppermint tea :D

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  11. These look so yummy! I love Mexican Wedding Cookies, and these are a surprising version of those (especially since I love peppermint)! I've started experimenting with my holiday baking too, so glad to hear I'm not the only one.

    www.treatswithatwist.com

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  12. YUM! I've been wanting to bake these but haven't come across the right recipe till now! :D

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  13. So pretty! I don't usually like the tea cookies with nuts in them, but these I could get behind. Or in front of. Or outside of, as in cookies in my belly. :-)

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  14. These are cute and elegant and the same time. Love them.

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  15. Wow beautiful cookies!!!
    Happy Saturday

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  16. These look amazing. I am going to make these for sure!

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  17. Does anyone know if you can use potato starch instead of rice flour? It also gives cookies a very light texture.

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  18. You can sub potato starch too, yes.

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  19. I love these cookies! And I happen to have that exact type of sugar. Hope it's still in date. Though realistically, can red sugar ever go off? I doubt it...

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  20. Napkins?! We don't need no stinking napkins!

    These are awesome, especially for the holidays. I LOVE the original, but you've got to love something pink and pepperminty for the holidays. Hope the gnome approves!

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  21. These would be perfect for a tea-themed baby shower (pink for baby girl)! (I just threw one this weekend, darnit!!!) I used pink food coloring to dye my cupcakes pink but wasn't impressed with the end result. (more purple than pink). What food coloring gel did you use here? This is the perfect pink for all things girly!

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  22. I used Americolor Red for these. I've found that when I want a soft pink color for my baking a small amount of true red gel is best. I have plenty of shades of pink gel too but I tend to get very harsh pink results from them.

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  23. I love how simply elegant these are. I'm always looking for nice little recipes like this to add to gift boxes.

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  24. I made a batch of pecan balls to bring to a family Thanksgiving celebration and borrowed your tip of using corn starch. It definitely improved the texture and they were a big hit!

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  25. omg!

    these look BEYOND yummy!!

    must try these soon!

    xoxo,
    lindsey

    http://bowsandarrowblog.blogspot.com

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  26. These look wonderful! I am totally making them for the Holidays

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  27. So pretty, and the peppermint is a genius addition. A la Betty Crocker, I grew up calling these Russian Tea cakes. I like to bake mine only long enough for the doughiness to be gone, 8-9 minutes, which gives a very tender (not crisp) melt-in-your mouth cookie.

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  28. I made these for a holiday cookie party this week but did cherry vanilla since I'd already make another peppermint cookie! I can't wait to try another flavor.

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  29. If you made little "stems" for these so that they looked a little mushroomy, then they would be (even more) perfect for gnomes! :)

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  30. I made these for a cookie party before Christmas. I mixed some edible glitter in with the powdered sugar to make them a little sparkly.

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  31. my goodness these look fab. I have to know how you get your photos so great... do you post-edit, or just use a great camera/camera know-how?

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  32. I have a good dSLR camera with a wide aperture lens and photograph in great natural light. The light is what I feel makes the biggest difference in how my pictures turn out. I always do some post processing but usually just to correct the white balance.

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  33. Yum yum yum! You've got me craving that now!

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  34. They look so yummy!!! I love it!
    I´ll try to do them :D



    bake-street.com

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