Peppermint Stripe Cookies Recipe (2024)

This might be total heresy but could you mix food coloring with the peppermint extract rather than purchasing the dusts?

You can also dilute a drop of gel food coloring with a teaspoon or so of vodka and paint with that. The vodka dilutes the gel enough to make a nice brush-able color and will evaporate quickly so the colors can dry.

I think I have some Angel Dust lying around, can I use that instead?

I googled "luster dust" and found that its commonly cited ingredients are titanium dioxide, iron oxide, carmine, and mica. Luster dust is frequently non-edible! I accidentally bought the wrong kind and have to return it.Wilton has a line of "pearl dust", all of which I understand is edible. It can be found at Michael's and other craft stores.Make sure the dust you purchase is edible!

Is this supposed to be four separate things? And do you mix them all together?“Red and pink petal dust and luster dust”

I think you get a much shinier surface with this cookie glaze without having to work with raw egg whites or track down meringue powder. I’ve used it for years and thousands of cookies. https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/simple-cookie-glaze-recipe

These are not only stunning but delicious and may be my new favorite holiday cookie! To make the red and pink stripes, I bought Wilton Color Dust in red, and Wilton Pearl Dust in Orchid Pink (these were the best options I could find at my local Michael's) and mixed them each with peppermint extract in separate small bowls. I used three different sized brushes to vary the size of the stripes.

What good is this comments section if the author never responds to questions?How much dust to use? How much luster to use? What color luster?

Take pity on those of us new to "dust" (especially if possibly toxic!): what brands, how much of each dust (really need 2?), & how much peppermint needed for this cool project? 1 Tablespoon? 2 pinches? please help us amateur artists! Helpful details re: royal icing--more on painting please!

They taste fantastic. This is a great sugar cookie recipe. I do like the taste of peppermint extract, but if you don't, you could easily do vanilla, or almond, or...

Yum. Rather than to buy the dust, I mixed 1 tsp of McCormick all natural food color powder in berry with 1 tsp confectionery sugar and about 1/2 tsp peppermint extract. I added a bit of water until it was just liquid enough to paint with. The result was a dark magenta coloring.

@erinn - they are not the same thing, and luster dust is often not edible -- if using, be sure to select one that specifies it is safe to consume.

OK, word of advice! When it comes time to paint the stripes: Don't overdue it and don't overload your brush. A big drip makes an ugly blob and the more you try to paint it out, the worse everything gets. I might try these a second time....

Made these as directed except I subbed my usual icing of confectioners sugar, just enough milk to make it runny enough to spread but not drip, and a pinch of salt. Got petal and luster dusts online and used Flavorganics brand peppermint extract, whose first ingredient is alcohol. I eyeballed the amount of dust added to the extract to paint on and tested on one cookie to get the right color saturation. So pretty and they also taste great.

After cutting the square cookies with the ruler and pizza cutter and putting the squares on the cookie sheet, I put them in the freezer for 10-15 minutes ( or whatever time to freeze the butter) and then put them in the hot oven. They held their shape.

Sooooo good! I accidentally did the vanilla extract in the cookie instead of the peppermint. So I added a tiny bit of peppermint extract to the royal icing. Honestly VERY into it! Would do it the same way next time. These are fabulous and soooo pretty.

They were pretty spectacular. Used the peppermint oil/food coloring/confectioner's sugar combo for the paint. They looked a little like ..blood streaks?!.. so I added some yellow stripes and they became modern art.

Fantastic. Exact texture you're looking for. Peppermint in the dough subdues its tendency to overpower. No notes. 9/10

Absolutely amazing. I was attracted to them because of the way they look but was so delighted by how delicious they are too. Probably technically it didn’t go great for me. But they are very forgiving!

I'd definitely recommend beetroot powder mixed with grain alcohol (evaporates) for painting -- luster dust and petal dust are not FDA approved or edible, and have been tied to toxic metal (lead, copper) poisoning in children after eating birthday cake. The U.S. is severely behind the times in safeguarding the public from toxic metals in food dyes. Wow.

Before baking I skipped the freezer step; they came out perfectly fine and had no lumps. Just make sure you mix and refrigerate as instructed and they’ll come out wonderfully.

This is my third year making these. So far, what we like best is just making plain sugar cookies with vanilla (omitting the peppermint extract in the cookie dough) and only using the alcohol extract in the colored pink wash. The smell is divine, it leaves a tingle on the tongue, and the peppermint taste is not overpowering (which we found to be the case when it is in the dough).We have also used this recipe to great effect using yellow petal dust and true lemon extract. Perfect summer cookie!

I made these & they turned out picture perfect!Follow the instruction & don’t cut corners. My twist was I made a chocolate peppermint cookie from another NYT Food recipe. Def chill dough before rolling. I made the cookies a week in advance & froze them. As my peppermint was oil based, I added peppermint (1/2 of req vanilla) to dough. Made icing day before dipping. Icing fully set in 6 hrs. Mixed dust with grain alcohol (evaporates) for painting. A bit labour intensive but worth it and stunning!

The instructions assume a lot, and some key instructions are in the author's notes at the top. First, what size are we talking about? It says 3" squares, which I thought were way too big -- 2 1/2" is plenty, but I know that makes the calculation complicated. Still, for 3" cookies, it would help to say roll into a 12"X18" rectangle. Presumably that would be about 1/4" thick since it easily divides into 4X6 pieces.Then there are the stripes. Why do you need both petal dust and luster dust?

Instead of buying luster you can use food coloring in corn starch and let it dry - I used a fan painting brush and made it look like little presents. Overall, a good cookie but a lot of work - next time I’ll pre make the dough and icing so it’s just less to do the day before.

Continuing with stripes -- how "loose" do you mean? I kept adding more dust, using one cookie as a test, and never got a very satisfactory color density, while the wash ate through my royal icing in a couple of spots (even though I let it dry overnight). It should recommend adding drops of extract until there's a paint-able consistency.Also, as noted by others, the mention of dust should include a warning about food safety.

They’re beautiful, but…toothpaste vibes.

In order to avoid peppermint overload, we omitted peppermint extract in the cookie dough and used a 50:50 ratio of vodka to peppermint extract for the brushstroke wash. Used gel food color instead of dust and it worked fine. Just allow sufficient dry time. The whole family (kids and adults) declared them delicious!

Professional pastry chef and confectioner hete. Lustre dusts, oetal dusts, diamond dusts, glitter dusts are, indeed, edible. The labels read “Non-edible” due to some states’ regulations, such as California’s, but yes, these all ARE non-toxic and edible. Every gorgeous painted buttercream cake, wedding cake, sugarpaste flower, painted, rolled fondant cake, which every well-known pastry chef makes, is pretty much guaranteed to have these dusts on them. You CAN eat them.

This was my third time making these. Previously, I followed the instructions and found it very challenging to get the icing to the perfect consistency for the dipping technique and it made a huge mess. This time I thinned the icing just enough to drizzle and smooth it to the edges with a spoon. This was the cleanest, most successful method for me, with only a few dribbles over the edge.