Gluten-Free Chocolate-Peppermint Crinkle Cookies

With Christmas just around the corner, I thought I would share some tasty Christmas cookie recipes with you all. For me, Christmas just isn’t Christmas without making tons of cookies. I love to make a variety of cookies, some traditional shortbread cookies, jam cookies, chocolate cookies and some fun cookies that I used to make as a kid with my mom. It really brings back such nice memories 🙂

For this Christmas, I thought I would do a spin on a traditional Chocolate Crinkle Cookie by adding one of my favourite winter flavours: peppermint! I can’t seem to get enough peppermint these days. I’ve run through three boxes of peppermint tea so far and I love adding a splash of peppermint extract to my hot chocolate. It’s so refreshing and really wakes up your senses!

You can find peppermint extract at any grocery store these days, but try to find an organic one. I find the organic peppermint extracts are much more flavourful and have that less processed taste compared to regular peppermint extract. This rule applies to buying any extract really, so keep this in mind when shopping next time!

Now, on to the cookies! These Gluten-Free Chocolate-Peppermint Crinkle Cookies get their “crinkle” texture from a strange ingredient that you aren’t likely to find in many baking recipes. Close your eyes and take a guess as to what ingredient this could be….ready? It’s balsamic vinegar! I know, it seems a bit weird but the acid in the vinegar causes the crinkles and cracks to occur in the oven, making a beautiful brown and white pattern on the cookies.

I also made these cookies to be gluten-free so all your guests, and maybe even Santa can enjoy them this Christmas. But with many gluten-free recipes, there are a few little techniques that you need to execute to get a tasty cookie. The first trick is to whip up the eggs and sugar until they are light and fluffy. Whipping the eggs and sugar really incorporates a lot of air into the batter and creates a better structure of the batter, helping the cookies hold their shape. I whip the eggs and sugar using an electric mixer until they are a smooth pale yellow colour and the batter holds a ribbon. In addition to this, I use lots of icing sugar, cocoa powder and cornstarch to hold these cookies together. The cornstarch is the real MVP in this recipe as it absorbs liquid and tightens the entire batter up.

Can you believe there is no flour in this recipe?!

Finally, one more trick to making chewy Gluten-Free Chocolate-Peppermint Crinkle Cookies is to bake these cookies on a day with low humidity. I know it can be out of your control sometimes, but finding a day to do this really makes all the difference in the cookies. It makes them chewy, but not dry and really holds their shape much better than on humid days!

Let me know if you would like to make these cookies this holiday season in the comment box below! For the full recipe, click here!

Enjoy!