Candy Cane Cookies

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In 1959 the Quaker Oats Company included a small recipe booklet in their oatmeal boxes. This recipe is from that booklet with a couple of changes my mom made over the years! 

It is the one cookie that all my kids adore and everyone asks for the recipe once they taste them. It is really an oatmeal shortbread so a bit on the crumbly side and best with a cup of cocoa, tea or milk! 

Click here for a Printable Version of this recipe.

Candy Cane Cookies

1 cup Butter softened

2 tsp vanilla

½ cup powdered sugar

3 Tbs Water

2 ½ cups sifted flour

¼ tsp salt

1 ½ cups oatmeal

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla together.

In a seperate bowl mix together the flour and salt

Once the butter, sugar and vanilla are light a fluffy, add half the flour mixture and half of the water and mix until just combined. Add the remaining flour and water and mix again just until combined then mix in the oatmeal.

The dough should not be crumbly. If it is add more water one tablespoon at a time.

I like to roll my logs out on a silicone mat so that I don't have to use extra flour but a floured counter will work

just as well.

Take a ball of dough the size of and egg and pinch it into a log shape. Then with both hands roll into a snake about 1/2 inch wide and 7 inches long

Place the log onto a baking sheet, either un-greased or with parchment on it, and form into a cane shape. You can also roll the dough into a ball and flatten with a cookie stamp or the bottom of a glass or measuring cup to make a disk.

Bake at 325 degree s until they are just slightly golden brown on the bottom, about 20 minutes.

Lay out on waxed paper to cool completely.

Make your glaze by combining 2 cups of sugar and 4 TBS of milk. The glaze should be thick enough to coat the cookies without running off.

Place the glaze in a wide bowl so that you can dip the cookies into glaze without hitting the sides of the bowl.

Dip the cooled cookies into glaze and lay out on waxed paper until the glaze is set.

Take the remaining white glaze and add a few drops of red food coloring to it. Spoon the red glaze into a quart size feeezer zip lock bag and cut a small bit off of one corner to make a piping bag to make the stripes.

I lay out all the cookies and make large sweeping stripes over all the rows at once.

You can also stripe them one at a time.

These freeze beautifully so make a double batch and stash some away .