Easy Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
Chocolate peppermint bark cookies are a fun cookie to make with your kids this holiday season. They will love personalizing each cookie with a custom creation.
Editor's Note: I first wrote this post when my girls were just itty bitties, it was the first cookie we baked in our new home after a big life-changing move.
I've kept the original photos of my sweeties baking in the kitchen with me but edited the post to add tons of helpful baking tips for you.
I wanted to keep this little peek into our real world lives because I firmly believe baking with your kids is the best memory making experience ever.
If you want to skip my sentimentality you can jump straight to the recipe card here.
Why This is the Best Recipe
I've baked a lot of cookies in our kitchen since I first published this post but I still think this is the best peppermint bark cookies recipe because:
- Fun for Kids: My littlest ones just loved making this recipe with me.
- Easy to Decorate: No special skills are needed.
- Delicious and Crispy: The chocolate cookie base is still my husband's favorite.
- Fun and Festive: They'll look just darling on any Christmas cookie platter.
Our Story About the Cookies
When we bought our new home this summer, I could not wait to get unsettled and use our new kitchen island for a big baking session with the girls.
The Peanut knew that is exactly why we picked this house with this kitchen and she's been begging for cookies since the move.
I wanted our first baking session with Little Pea to be special.
Normally, just the Peanut is my helper so it was a big deal that she had to share me.
I wanted to choose a recipe that would give both girls something important they could do to help but also have something important to do individually so they both felt really involved.
I decided to go with these peppermint candy bark cookies because they combine a cookie dough I know like the back of my hand but allowed for the girls to do some customized decorating on their own.
Ingredients
As a busy mom of little ones, I loved this Christmas cookie recipe because all I needed to bake it was:
- Flour
- Butter
- Brown Sugar
- Sugar
- Eggs
- Unsweetened Cocoa
- Baking Soda
- Salt
- Vanilla Extract
- White Chocolate Chips
- Milk
- Assorted Candies for my kids to decorate with
Make the Cookie Dough
Add the butter, brown sugar, and sugar to a large mixing bowl.
Beat them in with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla and the eggs just one at a time. Mix them in until just combined.
Add the cocoa and blend it in.
In a separate mixing bowl, add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Whisk them together.
Add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl and blend it in on low speed until just combined.
Drop the cookie dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper with a rounded tablespoon.
Dampen your hands and flatten the dough slightly.
Baking Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Bake the cookies for exactly 15 minutes. They will seem underdone.
Remove them from the oven and let cool slightly on the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
If you plan to bake these cookies for decorating with kids, you may want to do this step in advance.
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Make the Icing
Make the icing immediately before you plan to decorate the cookies. Once it sets, the candies will not stick to the top.
Melt the white chocolate chips in a double boiler OR add them to a microwave safe bowl and heat them on HIGH for 1 minute.
Stir the chips thoroughly and heat in 15 second increments, stirring between each heating session. DO NOT overcook or it will seize.
Decorate the Cookies
Spread the melted chocolate over the cookies and let your kids sprinkle assorted holiday candies over the top immediately.
I frosted one cookie at a time and gave it to a child to top with candy. I was careful to not go more quickly than they could decorate so that the chocolate wouldn't harden first.
If you have especially slow decorators helping, you may want to keep the chocolate soft by keeping the bowl over a pot of simmering water.
Tips for Baking with Kids
Little Pea was much more interested in eating the bowls full of M&Ms on their own rather than waiting to sprinkle them on top of her cookies:
The Peanut decided to copy an idea we saw on Pinterest together and tried to decorate hers like a snowman's face using leftover candy corn from Halloween.
I guess it's true that a super cute cookie tastes even better:
Over the years I've found that kids tire quickly of decorating cookies.
We discovered that 1 cookie sheet was plenty of fun for one session but I still started by making the entire batch of dough.
I simply baked 12 cookies for the girls on the day we wanted to play in the kitchen and then froze the remaining dough already prepared in cookie dough balls.
Variations
We will enjoy the frozen dough balls baked with Ande's Candies pushed into the dough before baking next time.
You could also press peanut butter chunks or other candies of your choice into the chocolate cookie dough, it's a very versatile cookie recipe.
Just reduce the recipe for the frosting by half if you only plan to bake a few cookies in one session.
More Easy Christmas Recipes for Kids
Holiday baking with kids is so fun, but it's a smart parent that picks an easy recipe to start with.
Here are some of our very favorites:
📖 Recipe
Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Cookies:
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter softened
- 1 cup light brown sugar packed
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
For the Peppermint Bark Candy Topping:
- 22 oz white chocolate chips
- Assorted candies: We used crushed peppermint candies, M&M's, mini-chocolate chips, red hots, and leftover candy corn for snowmen noses
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Cream the butter and two sugars until light and fluffy in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
- Add the vanilla, then the eggs one at a time, and mix well.
- Add the cocoa and mix again.
- Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt and add to the chocolate with the mixer on low speed until just combined.
- Drop the dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, using a rounded tablespoon. Dampen your hands and flatten the dough slightly.
- Bake for exactly 15 minutes (the cookies will seem underdone).
- Remove the cookies from the oven and let cool slightly on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
- In a metal mixing bowl set over a pot of simmering water, slowly melt the white chocolate chips.
- With a small frosting spatula or butter knife, spread a nice layer of chocolate on each cookie. Careful to not burn your fingers.
- The chocolate will cool quickly so have your children decorate the cookies 1 at a time as you hand them over. Though the chocolate was hot to touch while I spread it on the cookie, my girls had no problems with it. Please just warn your helpers to just sprinkle the decorations and not handle the hot cookies till they've cooled just to be safe.
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Look for more option soon in the Summer of 2014. We only use couverture chocolate. The raw cocoa ingredients are harvested from Madagascar.
We just tried these today after seeing them on pinerest. We have a seven and five year old so getting all three of us in the kitchen is tight so we took turns decorating. We learned that baking them for fifteen minutes was a bit long for our liking. The flavor is good though. We called them loose tooth cookies. *smile* It was fun to decorate more cookies today. *smile* Thank you for sharing this yummy cookies recepie with everyone. Sincerely, Mommy of two growing blessings & so much more!