This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Sugar cookie candy cane blossoms are the epitome of the holidays! They have a slight peppermint flavor from the candy cane kisses. These adaptations from the traditional blossom kiss cookies are always at cookie swaps and for a very good reason – they’re easy to make and a treat to eat!

It’s only the second week of December and I’m already sick of the snow and ice. It’s going to be a long winter for me :)
Yesterday, we were snowed in. On Sunday into Monday morning, we got an ice storm that came through and last night, another front came through and dumped a bunch of snow on us! The federal government closed yesterday and Jason and I were home all day. I think I was going a little stir crazy. It was a nice break to actually leave the house yesterday evening and go to Pure Barre class. Luckily, the snow stopped around 2pm so everything’s pretty much melted by now and the main roads are all clear. Back to work today! My office decorating is going really well. Would anyone like a post on how to decorate a corporate office? I’m actually really excited about it so not gonna lie, I kind of want to share a post on it. Is that weird?
You all have probably seen a variety of these cookies all over the web recently and mine’s just another of those varieties. I’ve never made these blossom kiss cookies before and I was thinking up some holiday cookie ideas that I could share with you all before December ended and I came up with these. What spurred my inspiration for these was a few weeks ago, I was visiting my good friend who recently had the sweetest baby girl. She had an entire candy dish on their table filled with these candy cane kisses. I had never seen or had these before that day. I didn’t even know they had candy cane pieces in them!! I was sooo hooked after that visit. I probably had more than 10 in one sitting. I drove to Target right after and bought two family-size bags. Haha
My other good friend mentioned how she usually makes these for Christmas and uses a sugar cookie base instead of the traditional peanut butter cookie base. Love it. I incorporated some red and green crystal sprinkles in. The sugar cookies are surprisingly really chewy and soft so that was a nice surprise. I was SO worried the kisses would melt. They do a bit, BUT if you don’t touch them or press them down, they hold their shape. I wanted to have some fun and flood some of the cookie centers with the candy cane kisses so on a handful of them, you can see in the photos that I pressed the kisses down so they’d completely melt throughout the thumbprint area.
Sugar Cookie Candy Cane Blossoms
Ingredients
- ½ cup (114 g) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon red sugar crystals
- 1 teaspoon green sugar crystals
- 24 Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses, unwrapped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 °F (177 °C) and line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large bowl with a hand mixer), cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.
- Add flour mixture, alternately, with milk, to the butter mixture and mix until fully incorporated. Finally, add the sugar crystals to the dough.
- Using a medium cookie scoop (or 1 1/2 tbsp of dough), place cookie dough on baking sheets.
- Bake cookies for 12-13 minutes, or until edges are turning slightly brown and crisp. Remove from oven and immediately after 2 minutes, press Hershey Kiss into the center of the dough. Do NOT touch it anymore at this point.
- After 5 minutes, gently transfer the cookies to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Notes
Nutrition
There are affiliate links within this post.
I want to see comments from people who MADE the cookies!
maybe you can help with that. make these and let everyone know :) additionally, if you look above your comment, there is a commenter who has made it and enjoyed it.
@Maddie, I made these this week and everyone LOVED them. I used the new sugar cookie kisses in the middle. Yum
Says it’s supposed to make 96 and we have 20. Jk… that’s what happened last year! Another fun tradition w my daughter and myself! We have a lot of laughs! Delicious cookies by the way!??
I love traditions! Glad you enjoyed these!
Can you use shortening in place of the butter?
I haven’t tried it that way but I feel it would work!
My daughter and I just started a new tradition! We used peppermint sugar sprinkles instead of red and green sugar sprinkles. Also, we used macadamia milk instead of dairy milk and the blossoms were absolutely delicious!!!
How fun!!
I am having trouble with the peppermint candy cane blossoms turning out flat
Check your leavening agent; it might be old?
Does it absolutely have to be unsalted butter? I was going to make these in the morning and I only have salted!
you could certainly try with salted butter (omit the 1/4 teaspoon of salt in the recipe) but I feel like the dough would taste salty with salted butter
making these for grandkids to take in their lunch to school as they are not allowed to take anything with peanut butter in it and have been asking for thumb print cookies but will also make a batch of the peanut butter thumbs print cookies for home as i too love peanut butter and chocolate
Great idea!
Do these cookies freeze well? We are into November now and already have quite a bit of snow so I feel it’s time to start baking! Cheers from Calgary.
I haven’t tried freezing them but they seem like they would; perhaps maybe just the raw dough balls and not the already baked cookies. Definitely feeling the Christmas spirit here!
I remember the year I discovered Candy Cane Kisses. I think I ate several bags all by myself! Enjoy~
Honestly I feel like you are doing your readers a disservice. The Hershey’s recipe, which is nearly identical, tastes MUCH better.
https://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipe-details.aspx?id=8362&name=KISSES-Candy-Cane-Blossoms
Hi Alison! If you read at the top of the recipe, I already had a link to the same Hershey’s recipe you just posted. The only thing I did different was add the green/red sprinkles in the dough as opposed to rolling it on the outside so I don’t know why you think I’m doing a disservice to my readers if this is using the same Hershey’s recipe base. Happy Holidays!