Chocolate Peppermint Black and Marble Cookies

Are you ready for it?  We’ve entered the downhill slalom towards the holidays and the new year.  

Despite the year we’ve endured, heck… maybe because of the year we’ve endured, I’m tipping full-body into this holiday season.  My mom is sweet enough to craft these ornaments for my Christmas tree (that I’m picking up a few days late this year). I have oranges sliced in the refrigerator for stovetop potpourri, and a separate stash of oranges and cloves to make this festive orange tower.  You know I have the pine candle burning and most importantly, this year I’m gearing up to send big lovey holiday care packages to friends and family. No holiday gift package would be complete without cookies, so in the next week I’ll show you how I craft them for mailing.  

Now, will TronCat wear a Christmas sweater this year? No. Will he sit under the tree like a Christmas forest cat? Yes – we can count on it.   

We’re on our way friends. Let’s just go for it starting with these tender and caky, chocolate and peppermint marbled cookies. 

Here’s what we’ll need for these cookies. We’ll have ingredients ingredients for the little cake cookies, ingredients for the peppermint glaze, and ingredients for the chocolate glaze. 

•  For the cookies we’ll need flour, baking soda, and salt. We’ll cream together butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.  Buttermilk, too – for extra tenderness. 

•  Powdered sugar, corn syrup, peppermint extract, and a pinch of salt for the glaze  A few drops of red gel food coloring will make the cookies more candy cane festive. 

•  Chocolate pieces, a few pats of butter, corn syrup, and a pinch of salt for the chocolate glaze.  (I find that the corn syrup makes the glazes more spreadable.) 

We’ll start by making the cookies.  

I like to whisk together the dry ingredients and whisk together the wet ingredients.  Keep it easy. Keep it organized.  

Cream together softened butter and granulated sugar.  

You’ll notice the mixture starts to fluff as air is incorporated into the butter and sugar. This air we’re trapping in the fat will help the cookies rise.  

Add the eggs and beat until fluffy and glossy.  

Next comes the dry ingredients and buttermilk in batches. 

Add half of the flour mixture, followed by all of the buttermilk, finishing with the last of the flour.  It’s like making cake batter! Essentially these cookies are like tiny cakes! 

These cookies really benefit from being baked on a piece of parchment paper. You’ll find that once baked, they’ll peel off perfectly from the paper.  

Heap 2 to 3 tablespoons of batter for each cookie, leaving a few inches of space in between the portions for the cookies to spread and settle.

I find that this sort of cookie scoop is great for portioning cookie dough into uniform cookies. 

Bake until the little cake cookies are golden brown and springy to the touch.  

Allow to cool for a few minutes on the pan before transferring to a wire rack, bottom side up, to cool completely. 

While the cookies cool, it’s time to make the glaze. 

Whisk together powdered sugar, corn syrup, a splash of milk, a pinch of salt, and peppermint extract until smooth and thick but pourable.  Add a few drops of red food coloring and swirl to a marble (but not so much that you make pink glaze). 

Melt the chocolate glaze ingredients together until glossy smooth and it’s time to swirl the cookies! 

The frosting goes on the bottom of each cookie. The bottom give us a flat surface. The top of the cookie is a little cushion for the cookie to sit perched on.  

Spread a layer of peppermint glaze across half of the cookie bottom.  

Spread with a layer of chocolate glaze across the other half.

Allow the cookies to settle (the glaze will set) for about an hour at room temperature. Once set to the light touch, individually wrap each cookie in plastic wrap keeping them fresh longer and making them perfect little cookies for shipping in a cookie tin! 

Photos with Jon Melendez. 

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