Giada De Laurentiis’ 6-Ingredient Chocolate Peppermint Cookies Are Bursting With the Flavors of the Season

Filled with the aromas of the holiday season, Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis‘ Chocolate Peppermint Cookies definitely deserve a spot on your cookie holiday swap list this year. An added bonus: they’re so much fun to make with friends and family.

Giada De Laurentiis’ Chocolate Peppermint Cookies are just what the season ordered

To make these merry cookies, you’ll just need a tube of refrigerated and prepared sugar cookie dough, all-purpose flour, semi-sweet chocolate chips, heavy cream, peppermint extract, and vegetable oil. That’s it!

Supplies you’ll need are a two-and-a-half-inch round cookie cutter, a half-ounce cookie scoop, and a rolling pin.

“Holiday cooking is fun,” De Laurentiis said in the Food Network video for this recipe (see below), “but cookies are the most fun of all. What’s wonderful about this cookie is how the chocolate coats the creamy peppermint center. And it’s all made around a simple sugar cookie.”

How to put these festive cookies together

De Laurentiis may be using packaged cookie dough for the recipe, but she’s not just slicing and arranging on a cookie sheet. The recipe starts by putting all of the dough in a bowl and adding a quarter-cup of flour, “so it’s easier to roll out. Sure, you can make your own, but this way, it makes it really easy.”

The dough is kneaded out with a little more flour and rolled out with a rolling pin. “You want to make sure that you roll out the dough about a quarter-inch in thickness,” the Giada at Home star added. Using the cookie-cutter, “cut little circles all the way around.”

Spray your cookie sheet with oil spray so that your cookies don’t stick. Then, place each circle of dough on the cookie sheet. Roll out any scraps of dough and make more cookies with it. De Laurentiis notes that “this dough makes 24 individual cookies.” Bake in a preheated 350-degree F oven for 10 minutes or “until the edges are nice and golden brown.”

The cookies are cooled for another 10 minutes and then sandwiched with a ganache made from heavy cream, chocolate chips, and peppermint extract (“It’ll make the cookies really smell and taste like the holidays”). The chef adds that the ganache needs to set in your fridge before placing it on the sugar cookies. After that, they’re dipped in melted chocolate chips with a tablespoon of vegetable oil and sprinkled with crushed peppermint candies. “They’re so festive, so beautiful, and delicious. It’s the perfect holiday cookie,” De Laurentiis said.

Reviewers got in the holiday spirit with De Laurentiis’ cookies

What’s not to love about chocolate and mint? For many of the Food Network chef’s fans, these treats were hard to resist and they said so

What’s not to love about chocolate and mint? For many of the Food Network chef’s fans, these treats were hard to resist and they said so on the recipe’s Food Network page.

“As always these are amazing,” said one home cook. “I made them for my staff holiday party and they were easy and delicious. I love the peppermint. So festive.”

Another fan added, “I LOVE the combination of chocolate and peppermint flavors, so this cookie is delicious to me. And so easy! I’m handing them out this Christmas as gifts in cute little cookie tins.”