Chocolate Candy Cane Cream Pies are a festive twist on a classic cookie. Two chocolate cookies scented with mint are sandwiched together by a candy cane cream cheese frosting and then rolled in crushed candy canes. You can’t help but rock around the Christmas tree when you bite into one. These cookies make the perfect addition to your holiday baking!
Making a sandwich cookie can seem like a daunting task, but don’t fear! It’s as easy as these few steps:
- Make cookies
- Make frosting
- Smoosh together
- Eat
See? Easy peezy lemon squeezy. Eating is definitely the best part, but making the cookies are equally as fun!
Making a chocolate cookie batter scented with mint is your first step. Nothing too crazy here – simple pantry ingredients are combined to make delicious little chocolate cookies.
Then, you whip up a candy cane cream cheese frosting. Which is essentially a cream cheese frosting with mint extract and a few drops of red food coloring to get that candy cane pink color.
Finally, you get to assemble the cream pies. The bottom of one cookie is spread with the frosting and then topped with another cookie and gently smooshed together. Rolling the cream pie through crushed candy canes is literally the cherry on top. So fun!
When you hand out a holiday platter of cookies, do a cookie exchange or whip up a batch just to celebrate your new Christmas jammies, these cookies are going to be what make people go “oooh” and “ahhh.” They will be gone before you know it!
I love how festive and fun these cookies are. Plus, you can’t go wrong with a candy cane cream cheese frosting, right? RIGHT.
Chocolate Candy Cane Cream Pies
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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- Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
- Yield: 9 cream pies 1x
Description
Chocolate Candy Cane Cream Pies are a festive twist on a classic cookie. Two chocolate cookies scented with mint are sandwiched together by a candy cane cream cheese frosting and then rolled in crushed candy canes. You can’t help but rock around the Christmas tree when you bite into one. These cookies make the perfect addition to your holiday baking!
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) butter, softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon mint extract
- 2 cups flour
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
For the frosting:
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon mint extract
- Red food coloring – I used a 3-4 drops
- Crushed candy canes for coating, about 4 candy canes crushed
Instructions
For the cookies:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about a couple minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add in one egg at a time, wiping down the sides of the bowl in between each addition. Mix in the vanilla and mint extract.
- Add in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed until a cookie dough forms, about a minute or so. Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop the cookie dough into balls onto a non-greased cookie sheet, placing them a few inches apart. I do about 6 cookies per standard-size baking sheet.
- Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes, or until the centers have just set. Right after the cookies come out of the oven, you can use a spatula to gently press the edges of the cookies into perfect circles if they are not already so. Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat until all the cookie dough has been used.
For the frosting:
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the cream cheese and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy, about a couple minutes. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the powdered sugar until smooth. Mix in the mint extract and the red food coloring until desired color is achieved.
Assemble:
- Once the cookies are completely cool, assemble the cream pies. Frost the bottom side of half the cookies with about a couple tablespoons or so of frosting, not going all the way to the edges of the cookies. Top all the frosted bottoms with the rest of the cookies as “tops” and gently press each cream pie together.
- You can either roll each cream pie in the crushed candy canes, or use your hands to sprinkle and gently press the crushed candy canes into the frosting showing on the sides. Enjoy!
Notes
- You can make the cookies a day or so in advance and then make the frosting and assemble the cream pies the day of. Works like a charm!
- Peppermint or mint extract will work in this recipe.
- Red food coloring isn’t required if you don’t want to use it – it just adds a fun pop of color!
- This cookie dough also works very well refrigerated for a few hours if needed.
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 11-12 minutes per batch
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If you make this recipe and love it as much as I do, I’d love to hear from you! Comment below, rate the recipe, or share a picture tagging @kjandcompany or using #kjandcompany so that I can see your fun pictures 🙂
Thanks for following and cooking along with me!
Hi, I’m KJ!
Here you’ll find simple, delicious recipes for the home cook. I strive to make wholesome meals with easy-to-find ingredients that you feel comfortable making in your own kitchen—but I won’t shy away from a few indulgences! (I see you: butter, bacon, cookies!)
I made these cookies for the Christmas cookie competition at work one year and these cookies won! Everyone loved how pretty they were and of course, how delicious they tasted! The mint extract adds such a wonderful and bold flavor to this cookie making it the perfect cookie to add to your holiday gatherings!