These White Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies are the perfect cookies for Christmas or for your cookie exchange! Baked with white chocolate chips and peppermint candies, these will become your new favorite holiday cookie!

Christmas would not be Christmas without these festive cookies. They are, quite simply, the most delicious, refreshing cookies you will ever eat.

Yes, refreshing. Like skiing down the Alps, the powder flying in your face, sheer joy oozing from every pore. Exhilarating. Transcendent. Life-changing. O.K. I may be overselling these a bit, but not much. Try them. You’ll see.

You know how you always have way more candy canes than you know what to do with? There are only so many cups of hot cocoa you can stir with a candy cane, right?

(Some of you may dispute that there is a limit on the number of cups of hot cocoa one may consume in the winter. That is your right as an American. Even if you are not an American, you can still have an opinion regarding the proper consumption of hot chocolate).

My kids personally will not just eat a straight-up candy cane. Neither will I, to tell the truth. But we all LOVE, and I mean L.O.V.E. these cookies.

But let me warn you: once you make these cookies, you can never go back. You will be obligated to make them every Christmas holiday season for the rest of your life. But that’s not so bad 🙂

Ingredients for White Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

• Sugar
• Brown sugar
• Butter (room temperature)
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• All purpose flour
• Candy canes
• White chocolate chips

How to Make White Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

1.Start out by preheating your oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat your butter alone for about 30 seconds. Then add your sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix together on medium speed. Scrape down the sides as necessary.

(At this point, the original recipe I got from my mom says to add melted white chocolate. However, I have removed this step from my recipe, because I don’t feel like it makes a difference in the flavor or texture of the cookie).

3. Beat in the eggs and vanilla

4. Add the flour and mix slowly. The dough will be very stiff. If your mixer starts struggling, turn it off and mix by hand.

5. Add crushed candy canes and white chocolate chips and mix in until evenly distributed throughout the dough.

6. Use a large or medium cookie scoop to scoop the cookie dough and place it two inches apart on a baking sheet.

7. Bake for 10-13 minutes, just until the edges barely begin to brown. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for ten minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Which Types of Pans are the Best for Baking Cookies?

Cooking times will vary based on whether you’re using metal pans, stoneware, or Silpat. Watch the cookies carefully! As soon as they barely start to brown around the edges, take them out! You might think they aren’t done, but these overbake very quickly. They have a tendency to be crunchy rather than soft, but either way, they are amazing!

I LOVE to use silicone baking mats when making cookies! Check out these Silpat Perfect Cookie Baking Sheets. They even have cookie outlines so you can see where to put your cookies! The outlines are placed a little differently than you would commonly see, but they are spaced perfectly so that your cookies don’t bump into one another.

I do also adore my stoneware. I have a couple Pampered Chef pans, but you can buy this Wilton Perfect Ceramic Pizza Stone for much cheaper. I like to use pizza stones rather than baking pans with sides, because the pizza stones are so much easier to clean.

The cookies will look different depending on which type of pan you use (metal, stoneware, or metal covered with silicone baking sheets). I almost never use metal pans or any more, but before I bake my first batch of cookies, I do try one test cookie on both the stoneware and baking mats (on my cookie sheets) to see which produce the most beautiful cookies.

If you don’t have silicone baking mats, I highly suggest lining your cookie sheets with parchment paper. It makes cleanup so much easier!

Tips for Making White Chocolate Candy Cane Drop Cookies

1.When you make these cookies, you will notice that the dough is very stiff. My hand mixer couldn’t handle it after the first two cups of flour, so I stirred in the rest by hand. You also have to stir in the crushed candy canes and chocolate chips by hand. If you’re using a powerful stand mixer, like a KitchenAid, you may not have to stir anything by hand. 

(When I made these recently, I let my butter get really soft, and used room-temperature eggs as well. This resulted in a dough that was not nearly as stiff as usual. I added an extra 1/4 cup of flour because I was worried, but I really didn’t need to. It just meant that my cookies were a little more puffy than usual, but they were still delicious!)

2. Making crushed peppermint candy can be difficult! I’ve tried putting the candy canes into a Ziploc bag and bashing them with a rolling pin, but the sharp shards of the candy canes always end up puncturing the plastic. The best way to crush them is to put them in a blender or food processor and pulse them. You don’t want them to be completely pulverized into dust. You want some small pieces and chunks. If you add candy cane dust to the cookie dough, it will cause your cookies to be hard after baking, instead of soft.

You might want to warn people before you begin processing the candy canes in your blender, because it is LOUD.

If you’re REALLY lucky, you may be able to purchase already-crushed candy canes at the store! I happened to find this glorious package at Home Goods!

3. After I put the dough on the cookie sheets, I smash them just a little bit to help them spread while baking.

4. Warning! Don’t eat these straight out of the oven, because the melted candy cane can be really hot! I know it’s hard, but try to wait at least 20 minutes or more!

5. Store in an airtight container at room temperature after they have fully cooled.

6. If you really want to dress these up, you can dip half of each cookie into melted white chocolate or almond bark, and then sprinkle more crushed candy canes on the melted chocolate. Or you can use a spoon to create a drizzle of white chocolate over the top.

We give these to friends and neighbors every year for Christmas, and everyone RAVES over them. But if you don’t have time before Christmas, no worries. Just use up all those leftover candy canes AFTER Christmas and you will be golden.

Looking for more great Christmas cookies perfect for a cookie exchange? Try these super popular Chocolate Orange Cookies, Peppermint Chocolate Slice and Bake Cookies, and Cranberry Orange White Chocolate Chip Cookies.

And be sure to check out my Christmas Cookie Exchange post for a whole bunch of Christmas cookie recipes!

White Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

Yield: 30 cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Active Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Festive cookies perfect for Christmas and cookie exchanges! Full of white chocolate chips and candy cane bits, these cookies are refreshing and fun!

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Ingredients

• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 c. butter, softened
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 1/4 c. flour
• 2/3 c. finely crushed candy canes
• 8 ounces white chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Turn on your oven to 350 degrees.
2. In large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugars, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping bowl occasionally.
3. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
4. Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer. If it gets too tough, mix in the rest by hand. The dough should be very stiff.
5. Stir in the chopped candy canes and white chocolate chips.
6. Using a large cookie scoop, place the dough two inches apart onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
7. Bake 10-13 minutes, or until lightly browned around the edges. Do not overbake! Let cool for about 10 minutes on pan before transferring to wire rack to cool.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 30 Serving Size: 1 cookie
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 133Total Fat: 5.9gSaturated Fat: 3.5gCholesterol: 21mgSodium: 72mgCarbohydrates: 18.4gFiber: .3gSugar: 10.3gProtein: 1.9g

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