"Peppermint Bark" Chocolate Cookies

I found this recipe online a few weeks ago. I was searching for recipes that called for candy canes as I had bought several boxes during the after Christmas sales. I must confess that I made up some of the dough the same day I found the recipe. I just never got around to actually baking the cookies. I kept the dough in the fridge and kept snacking on it until it was gone. *sheepish grin*

Well today I decided to make another batch of dough and do a post about them. I got the recipe here. Now you are probably saying to yourself that the recipe calls for 'peppermint bark' not crushed up candy canes and you would be absolutely correct. If you look right above the recipe it says:

You can buy peppermint bark at any candy store or specialty food store, or you can simply make the peppermint bark yourself. If you want to make life even easier just add some white chocolate chips and crushed peppermint candies in lieu of peppermint bark.

and then down in the comment section I found this:

If you are taking the short cut and using white chocolate chips and candy pieces, how much of each would you recommend using? Thanks!

Maybe around a half cup of each, though I would lean more towards more white chocolate. Candy bits sometimes have a habit of getting melty as well, so it may hurt the appearance, but not the taste (I ate one where a large chunk of candy melted and browned a bit and it tasted just fine). You can follow Elise's idea and use peppermint extract with or in lieu of candy pieces as well. ~Garrett

I saw that and I said Whoot! yep, I really did say Whoot! as I was one happy gal. So I opened up all those boxes of candy canes and put them INto my food processor and gave them a whirl. Can I just tell you that it was LOUD! Anyway here's my big ol' peanut butter jar full of crushed candy canes:



I decided that I would use 1/3 cup of my crushed candy canes and 2/3 cup of those "white" chocolate chips I got on clearance because they were red and green swirls. I'm just not getting enough artificial coloring everyday so I knew these would help me out in that department. Hmm, I need a mixer for this but unfortunately I broke one of my beaters so...I'll use my food processor and see what happens.




Here's the butter and sugar all creamed together.



I don't want to over beat the flour so here's the cocoa, salt, baking powder, and baking soda about to be worked in.




Here's the dough with cocoa worked in. Then I added the candy canes and "white" chocolate chips to break them up some more, and then the flour was slowly added in. I forgot to get any shots of that or after the flour was all worked in. The cookies turned out flatter than the ones pictured with the recipe and are soft and fudgy inside. They are tasty!!


I saved you some! Want some milk?

Edited to add: Since I wrote this, I tried making another batch of these using 1.5 cups of brown sugar instead of half white granulated and half brown sugar. This resulted in a very soft cookie which I just loved.