Hand-Made Holiday: Reindeer Cookies

Rudolph Cookies

We thought that since we made treats for Poppy the other day we should also make some treats for us!  Conor and I love to bake and were so exited to bake something different for his playgroup cookie swap.  Each Christmas we usually do sugar cookies, but one of the moms is making some for the kids to decorate at today’s cookie swap party.  We hope his friends and the jolly old St. Nick himself will like these reindeer inspired treats.

I found this great recipe at Bakergirl, but tweeked it a little bit:

Reindeer Cookies

3/4 cup peanut butter

1 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 egg

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

Chocolate-covered mini pretzels

Mini brown M&Ms

Regular-sized red M&Ms

Chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Combine brown sugar, peanut butter, butter, milk, and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until well blended. Add egg; beat until just blended.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix just until blended.

Form dough into 1-inch balls. To make reindeer-shaped cookies, pinch the bottom of the ball slightly to form a point, then gently flatten with your hand. 

Space cookies about 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 7 to 8 minutes, until set or just beginning to brown. 

Remove from oven and immediately (and gently) press pretzels into the tops of the cookies for the reindeer’s antlers. The original  recipe called for mini pretzels but I couldn’t find any so I broke normal sized ones with Hershey’s Special Dark in pieces.  Press two mini green M&Ms in for the eyes and one red M&M for the nose.  We had mini Christmas ones so did green eyes, but you can do whatever color you want.  We also did some with chocolate chip eyes.  The cookies began hardening up so I would have all your candies ready to go, Conor and I were scrambling to get all the reindeer faces made 🙂

Allow to cool 2 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Makes about 40 reindeer cookies.

Original recipe was from Jif.  If you have a peanut allergy you can use a sugar cookie or gingerbread recipe.

Some green-eye Rudolphs

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