I’m pleased to share these Candy Cane Kiss Cookies with you because they’re my favorite holiday cookie recipe of all time! Watch the short video showing you how to make these cookies, then scroll to the bottom of this post and print out the recipe so you can bake them at home.
Candy Cane Kiss Cookies
You’ll want to print out this recipe and save it for the holidays. Candy Cane Kiss Cookies are the best Christmas cookie recipe!
When the fall holidays arrive, the Candy Cane Kisses begin to appear on supermarket shelves too. These are an incredibly delicious flavor delivered by the Hershey’s Kisses people. And they’re amazing tucked into a cookie too.
Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses
I love these things. I mean truly love these. They’re addicting, and they shouldn’t be purchased unless you plan to share… or bake Candy Cane Kiss Cookies.
These Candy Cane Kisses can be found during the fall/winter holidays at Target or drug stores and some grocery stores too. They’re amazing little treats. And I love them. Have I mentioned that?
These delightful little kiss cookies have some of those Candy Cane Kisses chopped up and incorporated into the cookie itself.
How to Make Candy Cane Kiss Cookies
The pepperminty cookie dough is rolled into balls and then tossed in a little bit of granulated sugar.
And the baked cookies are topped while warm with a Candy Cane Kiss. Then they’re placed into the refrigerator or freezer to set the chocolate so it doesn’t melt into the cookie. They’re such a pretty cookie for the holidays.
The Best Christmas Cookie Recipe
Candy Cane Kiss Cookies are good make-ahead cookies. They freeze well… so you can take them out for cookie platters when you’re ready for plating, or just take them out of the freezer and chow-down on Christmas treats when the mood happens to strike.
I believe they’re the best Christmas cookie recipe because they’ve been the number one favorite on my holiday cookie platters every year for the last ten years now!
When my son was little, he used to think these cookies were a good one to leave out for Santa, along with a glass of milk and a carrot for Rudolph.
You must find these specialty Kisses this holiday season and try them, and then definitely make some Candy Cane Kiss Cookies too!
If you’re looking for more festive cookie recipes for the holidays, you might also like to try my Chocolate Mint Wafers or these Holiday Nuggets. Christmas Crinkle Cookies, Molasses Honey Ginger Cookies and Gingerbread Christmas Tree Cookies are lovely holiday cookies too!
Candy Cane Kiss Cookies
Recipe Details
Ingredients
- 1½ cups powdered sugar
- 1¼ cups (2½ sticks) butter, at room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon peppermint extract (optional- see recipe notes)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup finely chopped Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses
- granulated white sugar
- 30 unwrapped Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Make room in either the refrigerator or freezer for your cookie sheet.
- In a large mixer bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the powdered sugar, butter, egg and extracts. Beat at medium speed, scraping the bowl often until creamy (2 to 3 minutes). In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and beat, scraping bowl often until well blended (1 to 2 minutes). The mixture will be a bit crumbly. Stir in the chopped Kisses.
- Shape the dough into 3/4-inch to 1-inch balls; roll in sugar. Place 1-inch apart on cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until set. As soon as they come out of the oven, press a Candy Cane Kiss into the center of each cookie. They'll crack a little around the edges, so just use your fingers to kind of hold the cookie together while you set the kiss inside. Put cookie sheet (with cookies) immediately into the freezer (preferred) or refrigerator so that the Kisses will set quickly. As soon as you press them into the cookie, they will begin to soften... so if you can get them into the freezer then they will keep their Kiss shape.
- Store in a covered container- at room temperature for up to a week. In the freezer they should be okay for a couple of weeks.
Video
Notes
- *The addition of peppermint extract is completely optional. The cookie gets plenty of peppermint flavor from the addition of the chopped kisses, but if you’d like it really minty then go ahead and add the peppermint extract.
- *I’ve spotted these Kisses at Target and CVS Pharmacy.
I love this recipe. I love these cookies. My daughters’ and I made these for the first time as a family Christmas tradition! Everyone loved easting them and kept going to the freezer to get them before they set!
I LOVE this recipe! Adding it to my must make recipes! So delicious! I couldn’t help but snack on the dough the whole time!
Great recipe! Solved the melting kisses. I froze them so I could put tge cookies in the refrigerator and didn’t need to rush doing it since they were frozen.
How much sugar do I use in the recipe? All it says on the recipe is granulated white sugar
Powdered sugar is in the dough. The granulated sugar is for rolling the balls of dough before baking. Just a little bowlful is fine.
These have too much flour! Taste is okay, but this is a SUPER DRY cookie.
I think you must have over-baked them?
If you chill the kisses before setting them, they will melt less before they are able to chill in the freezer. Awesomeness.
How long do you have to keep the cookies in the refrigerator before you can remove the cookies from the cookie sheet? (Freezer has no room.)
As soon as the kisses have hardened a bit!
This is my first time making these cookies this past Christmas and oh boy has my family been missing out. These were an instant hit and have now become a yearly make in my household for the holidays ONLY! They are easy and cook really well. One tip I would give is when it comes time to add the kiss do not push hard when topping the cookie. They are very delicate and need to be handled with care at this stage. Thank you for sharing these with the world! xoxo
Can I use pre made sugar cookie dough to save some time?
I haven’t tried that…
The cookies are absolutely delicious! I made my own errors by not using enough dough for each cookie, therefore, winding up with 72 instead of 30. Also, did not heed your advice about quickly putting them in my refrigerator. Many kisses melted! Will definitely make these again next year.
For the peppermint Hershey kiss cookies —-can you put these in a tin with other cookies or will the other cookies absorb the peppermint flavor ?? Thanks
I think they should be fine with other cookies!
Perfect Christmas cookie – those kisses are always so pretty and festive!
Could cookies be any cuter? I don’t think so. These are going to be perfect for my office cookie exchange.
Such an amazing holiday treat! Love it!
So cute and festive! Can’t wait to make these this year.
So fun and festive all your guests will love them.
These look so pretty on holiday dessert tables!
We love these cookies!
These are the BEST cookies!
SO festive and tasty! I can’t wait to bake another batch!
Woow. It would be perfect for Christmas. Thanks for the recipe.
I love that it’s speckled throughout the dough too. Such delicious cookies!
I made these today! They’re so cute! I agree they don’t need peppermint extract, perfectly minty without.
My only question is, my dough was perfert but when they were cooked the cookie part was a bit dry. Still very good but on the dry side. Do you think a bit more butter in the dough or cooking for less time would help? Thanks!
With dry dough, adding a little milk or whipping cream can help pull it together.
These look great! I saw the kisses at Target just a couple days ago, Definitely going to try this before Christmas! I was wondering if i could crush up candy canes and sprinkle them on the cookie?
Just tried these – not sure if the came out right (they look good though). The bottoms never brownd and the section on the underside of the kiss looks and tastes undercooked. I cooked for the full 12 minutes and confirmed oven temp. I put them back in for another 7! minutes and nothing changed. Still white with an undercooked underside. Also the recipe made more like 48 so I didn’t have enough kisses. I double checked all ingredients. Not sure what happened.
Can you use GF all purpose flour with this recipe. Also any high altitude tips?
I haven’t tried to sub GF flour in this recipe yet. Here is a great website to refer to for high altitude baking tips: http://www.mountainmamacooks.com/high-altitude/
These came out great! They were delicious, although the rush to put in the kisses and get them in the freezer was a little hard. The consistency of the dough was very easy to work with. The cookies are in the freezer now; I’m really hoping the kisses won’t melt.
These are great cookies! I bought the kisses and stored them in the freezer until they needed to be pressed into the cookies and then put the pan in the freezer. I had no issues with melting. My only concern was that at 12 mins they seemed way, way too soft. Did anyone else have this issues? I left them in for 14 mins, but I am wondering if I slightly over baked them.
I’ve never seen these kisses before o.o. I hope can find them in our supermarket they are so cute.
These are seriously one of the best I’ve EVER eaten. DEF add the peppermint extract and instead of chopped kisses in the batter I used chopped peppermint bark. I will make these every year from now on.
they were okay but a little doughy .. I suggest cooking them longer
Has anyone tried crushing candy canes rather than the kisses? Too much peppermint? Did it change the texture of the cookie?
I think it would def change the texture of the cookie!
Just made these. I did not use peppermint extract and loved the result! They will be a great addition to my cookie tray on Christmas!
I made these today and made it according to the recipe with the exception of the peppermint extract and they turned out great! I was surprised that it made almost 5 dozen! I put the kisses in the freezer prior to baking, and waited two minutes after taking them out of the oven to press them on, and I then put them into the fridge; I didn’t have any trouble with the kisses melting.
These cookies are delish! I made a few minor adjustments: I didn’t top each cookie with its own Kiss since I had to make 8 dozen–and I also wanted them not too sweet. To make sure they were pepperminty enough, I increased the chopped Kisses to 3/4 cup, and I added the tsp of peppermint extract. I also only used 1 cup of powdered sugar. Everyone loved them — so much so that I had to hide a few for myself, otherwise I wouldn’t have had any to enjoy!
I made these today. They are great. Pretty and good. I used the whole teaspoon of peppermint extract and the 1/2 cup of chopped kisses in the batter and it was perfect.
We liked these without the kisses on top…just the chopped up ones mixed in. Yummy and festive! Thanks for the recipe!
Cute & festive cookies!
hey I was wondering is there an alternative to powdered sugar? do you guys think I could use normal white sugar?
No, for the dough you need to use powdered.
These cookies are fantastic and I was easily able to convert them to gluten-free so that my entire family could enjoy them. Thank you so much!
I love thumbprint type cookies! My favorite way to make them is in a mini muffin tin…they are the perfect size that way.
I have my first cookie exchange coming up on Dec 2 so I tried them last week, they came out good but the dough was really crumbling and was hard to shape, it kept falling apart. My kisses melted and I put them directly into the freezer. Then I tried two more times and could not get it either. Help please my family loved the 1st batch. I need to know what to do about the batter falling apart and not sticking. Do I need more butter?
It’s a crumbly dough for sure. You could try adding in a tablespoon or so of milk when kneading it together if you feel it’s too dry.
Wondering how a chocolate cookie would be with the candy cane kiss in the middle? Trying this recipe next week for my very first cookie exchange. Hope I can find the kisses right after Thanksgiving….
Sounds good to me!
I just made these this morning for Christmas! Candy Cane kisses are my favorite so I couldn’t wait to try these! The recipe made a lot more than 30 so I have some without kisses, even those are delish!!
Looking forward to making these today! (That is If my husband doesn’t eat all of the Kisses first!)
oh my goodness! these are so yummy! trust me you dont need the extra peppermint. the chopped up kisses are just right! beware…they are addicting! should call them crack candy cane cookies! lol
I tried it with Bob’s all purpose GF flour- they turned out awesome! I did have to reduce the amount of butter (only 1 cup) to get the crumbly texture you mentioned.
These are delicious, and so cute! I had trouble with my kisses melting too, and I put them immediately in the freezer after placing them. On the second pan of cookies, I let them cool for 5-7 minutes before placing the kisses, and then I popped them right into the freezer. So far, they are maintaining their shape very well. Thanks for the recipe!
Just made these! they’re sitting in my fridge now. I am not so great with baking and these were very easy and frustration free!
I doubled the recipe, which required more than 2 bags of kisses…. I will definitely make these again!
@Lori Lange,
Thanks, but I’m a Canadian…. can’t get to a CVS!! I did find them at the Bulk Food store for a decent price, though.
Great recipe! I made them for one event already this season and people just love them. Your directions were easy to follow as well. I look forward to trying more of your recipes. Happy Holidays!
Made these today! Great recipe! Only thing I did differently is to unwrap the kisses that I was pressing into the cookie and put them in the freezer until I was ready to press them into the warm cookie. Helped them really hold their perfect shape.
Thank you!!! I’m going to try these with the mint flavored Kisses, too.
@Becky, Great tip!
Wow haven’t seen these kisses yet but I’m making these as soon as I do!! 🙂
I just made these, and at first I was a little nervous because the recipe was so different from the one on the bag, but they are PERFECT! Really light and fluffy and perfect for the season. The only thing I did different was rolling them in red and green crystals as opposed to sugar, and they came out beautiful. And I found that 1/2 tsp. of peppermint extract adds the perfect hint of flavor. Thank you so much for the recipe! I’ll use it again next year.
@Lisa, The cookies are terrific all by themselves!!! They will be a big hit at your exchange!
I found these Kisses at Walmart today and can’t wait to make some of these cookies!
Oh I love those Candy Cane kisses! I bet they’re super delicious in these cookies!
Oh, these are so cute. I’ve never had the candy cane kisses before but I bet they taste good in cookies. Hmm, now you’ve got me thinking!
These look so beautiful and festive!!! I love Hershey products. I live in PA so I’m a bit partial…
I love these shortbread cookies. But topped with the candy cane kiss? Pretty to look at too!