This 12 day cookie challenge is meant to be just that, a challenge. So with that I wanted to challenge myself to incorporate a gluten free bake. I've had success in the past with straight flour swaps for a gluten free bake and I think sometimes it can work perfectly, other times it can completely fail.
This time, I wanted to take one of my favourite bakes (shortbread) and see how I can spice it up and do it all without gluten. These little chocolate peppermint shortbread cookies turned out pretty good, dipped (or drizzled) with white chocolate and then sprinkle with some crushed candy canes.
These shortbread cookies are a rich dark chocolate with a hint of peppermint through them. It's a subtle flavour because it can be very easy to go overkill on the peppermint and then it's not enjoyable in the slightest.
Turns out, it's much hard to crush candy canes than you'd think. I found out the hard way and ended up with candy cane bits flying across the kitchen and out of the zip lock bag I was crushing them in. Also tried a bowl and that was equally as hard. So may the odds be ever in your favour when crushing those candy canes. Be careful out there.
Chocolate Peppermint Shortbread Cookies (gluten free)
- Cream the butter and the sugar together in a large bowl. Then add the peppermint extract.
- Next, sift the flour and cocoa powder into the bowl and mix to combine. Mix until you can't see the flour anymore and just combined, be careful not to overmix. In the bowl, pull the dough together into a rough ball.
- Roll out a piece of cling film onto a surface and shape the dough into a log shape. Keep in mind, the thickness of the log will be the size (diameter) of the cookies. Wrap the log into cling wrap and place in the fridge to chill for at least an hour, or until firm.
- Preheat the oven to 180c/350f and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
- Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and slice the dough ready to bake. My slices are about half an inch thick, you can go slightly thicker or thinner if you would like.
- Place onto the baking sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes.
- When removing them from the oven, if they have baked a bit miss-shapen, then take a round cookie cutter that is larger than the cookie and place over the cookie and move gently in circular motions around the edges to pull them back into a circle shape. You can only do this when the cookie is out the oven and still hot, when it cools, you won't be able to re-shape it.
- Allow the cookies to cool completely and melt the white chocolate either over a bain marie or in the microwave in 30 second blasts.
- Spoon over your white chocolate or dip the cookies into the white chocolate, then place on a baking sheet to set. Sprinkle over some crushed candy canes for decorations - completely optional but completes the look!
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