Everyone will love these adorable chocolate Reindeer Cookies at Christmas.
Christmas Baking
As someone who painfully lacks culinary artistic skills, I have been having a lot of fun in the kitchen lately making novelty cookies, like the Peanut Butter Spider Cookies which were a big hit at Halloween.
It is worlds away from making something spectacular like a pristine-looking fondant covered cake with beautifully piped buttercream roses, but I have accepted long ago my limitations in the kitchen.
So we now enter the world of kitsch and I am not too sure who is having more fun making and eating these fun cookies – me or the kids!
Reindeer Cookies
My latest attempt at amusing my children are these adorable and delicious Reindeer Cookies.
The inspiration comes from Hannah Miles, a finalist in one of the series of MasterChef UK, and someone who I admire for leaving for her high-flying legal career to pursue her love of food and cookbook writing.
In recent years, I have been undecided as to whether I have departed ways from my former life as a corporate lawyer, or if I am merely taking (a very long) career break.
Whichever it is, I am always inspired by other lawyers who have opted for a career change down a more creative path. Maybe I will be one of them, but a part of me really misses the intellectual challenges of my former legal career. We will see!
Christmas Reindeer Cookies
These Reindeer Cookies combine everything that my son loves to eat as junk food (which he is not allowed to have, of course) – a chocolate cookie with salted pretzels and peanuts. Here, the peanuts are even chocolate coated, which my son did not know existed and they are now his idea of heaven!
My children gave these Reindeer Cookies a big thumbs-up, and I have to say that they are very delicious indeed.
The chocolate cookie is crunchy and sweet, and they are just so cute to look at. Although, I do think some of them look a bit cross-eyed or grumpy, and I blame that on the candy eyes that I have used; unfortunately, I can only find these oval candy eyes where I live and they seem to add more expression than plain round eyes!
I think these Reindeer Cookies will provide a nice alternative to the usual gingerbread cookies at Christmas, although I know I will be baking many batches of the latter too.
More Christmas Cookies
If you are looking for Christmas cookie recipes, you might also enjoy:
Reindeer Cookies
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
- Yield: Makes about 30 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: International
Everyone will love these adorable chocolate Reindeer Cookies at Christmas.
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RateIngredients
- 2 1/2 cups (320g) plain flour (all-purpose flour)
- 5 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/3 cup (30g) good quality unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup (200g) caster sugar (superfine sugar)
- 1 1/2 sticks (175g) unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons golden syrup or light corn syrup
- small pretzels
- sugar-coated chocolate peanuts (brown and red)
- 1.8oz (50g) dark chocolate (bittersweet chocolate)
- candy eyes
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Place the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, baking soda and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer.
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter and golden syrup (or light corn syrup) together.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix until everything is well incorporated. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you could simply do this with a large mixing bowl and wooden spoon.
- If the mixture looks too dry, add a dash of milk or water until everything comes together into a ball of dough. As there is no egg in this recipe, the dough will be a bit crumbly anyway.
- Roll small pieces of dough into a ball, a bit smaller than a golf ball, or make them as large or as small as you like. I prefer to make them small as they will spread a bit upon baking.
- Place the balls of dough on the baking tray, but space them apart as they will spread as they bake.
- Flatten the balls of dough and gently form oval shapes. Don’t worry if they look cracked because they will become crackly upon baking.
- Bake the cookies for 5 minutes and then remove them from the oven.
- Immediately press two pretzels into each cookie to form the antlers. Use a clean tea towel to gently flatten each cookie.
- Return the cookies to the oven to bake for a further 5-7 minutes, or until the edges look firm.
- Immediately press one sugar-coated chocolate peanut into each cookie to form the nose. The heat from the cookies will melt the sugar-coated chocolate peanuts and make them stick together.
- Leave the cookies to rest on the hot baking tray for about 5 minutes to firm up before removing them carefully to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Place the melted chocolate into a heat-proof piping bag or a silicone decorating pen.
- Dot a very tiny amount of melted chocolate onto each cookie to use as the glue for each candy eye.
- If any pretzel has become dislodged, simply “glue” it back with some melted chocolate.
Kitchen Notes
If you can’t find candy eyes, you can still create eyes on the cookies by piping melted white chocolate to form the whites of the eyes, and dotting them with melted dark chocolate to form the pupils.
OVEN TEMPERATURES
All recipes on this website state temperatures for a regular oven (i.e. a conventional oven without fan). If you have a convection oven with a fan, please consult the manufacturer’s handbook on how to adjust the temperature and baking time accordingly.
CONVERSIONS
To convert from cups to grams, and vice-versa, please see this handy Conversion Chart for Basic Ingredients.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: Nutritional info per cookie
- Calories: 142
- Sugar: 10.1g
- Sodium: 46.6mg
- Fat: 6.3g
- Carbohydrates: 21.3g
- Fiber: 1.5g
- Protein: 2.1g
- Cholesterol: 12.4mg
#eatlittlebird
Update
This recipe was first published on 8 November 2017. It has been updated with new photos and more comprehensive recipe notes.
These are just too adorable – definitely pinning to try for the holidays! I, too, admire others who have left successful careers to pursue this type of work as a passion, and dream of following suit one day. 🙂
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Fingers crossed for the two of us! Your work is beautiful 🙂
Awww! I so much enjoyed looking at the pictures of these adorable reindeer cookies. My son’s school will be having a bake sale at the end of the month and I’m thinking of making your great reindeer cookies! I bet the kids will love them! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I bet these will totally be a hit with the childen 🙂 I hope you will enjoy the recipe!
Oh my gosh! These are adorable!
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Thank you!
These reindeer cookies are just too hilarious and cute! I’m dying! And they sound so yummy too!
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Thank you! They were really fun to make, and eat as well!
How adorable are these!? And such an easy decorating idea for kids. They would love this!
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Although the children loved these cookies, I think I would only attempt making them with older children, especially as you have to be quick to decorate the cookies before they cool. But definitely doable!
These are just ridiculous…ly adorable!! I can’t even stand their happy little faces. Still, I’d eat them. 😉
Ha ha! Me too!
So cute!
Just made these cookies but they sugar is not mentioned in the instructions! I assume it goes in with the dry ingredients, is this correct?
Hi Margaret,
So sorry! I’ve just updated the recipe to include the sugar in the instructions. You are correct – the sugar is added together with the dry ingredients. I hope you will enjoy these cookies!
So cute!! Beautiful presentation. I would love to try this!
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These are just so cute! What a great way to make xmas baking fun 🙂 These would be perfect for gifts and parties!
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Thank you! Our kids can’t wait to make these again soon 🙂
Fun to make with the kids! The cookies were crunchy and delicious. Will make more to give as gifts next time!
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