Christmas Cookies with Randall Beans
Hanging the stockings over the fireplace. Decorating the Christmas tree. Wrapping presents. Watching A Christmas Story over and over again on repeat for 24 hours. There are so many wonderful Christmas traditions to enjoy and take part in as a family each and every year. But, there is one that for the Keating family tops the list and that is baking Christmas cookies!
Sure, you can bake cookies any time of the year that you like. But there is just something so magical about baking cookies specifically for the holidays! Adorning them with sprinkles and icing with colors of the season makes them taste all the more special, especially if you eat them by the fire with a tall glass of milk or hot cocoa to wash them down with.
The tradition is to make a plate of cookies for Santa to eat after he comes down your chimney, but we like to make sure there is plenty for our family to enjoy too! For us, however, it is less about who you make Christmas cookies for and more about who you make them with. After the past year of being apart from family and friends, this sentiment is especially important this year.
That is why the Keating family decided to have a little extra holiday fun this Christmas when Meredith and Lydia teamed up to make a batch of delicious Christmas cookies, using Randall Great Northern Beans! Believe it or not, beans are actually the perfect ingredient for making healthier and protein-packed desserts like cookies and cake that can easily be made vegetarian or vegan-friendly. They are a great binder, making most bean-based desserts egg-less and minimizes the amount of flour you have to use.
Decorated with colorful sprinkles and filled with peppermint for even more Christmas pizzazz, the Keatings had and absolute blast making our Randall Beans Christmas cookies. How much fun? Why don’t you see for yourselves? Lydia and Meredith filmed themselves so that you can more easily follow along and make your own batch of Christmas cookies!
We would love to see how your Randall Christmas cookies turned out, so be sure to show us on Facebook!
From the Randall Beans family to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!
Ingredients
- 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp. white sugar
- ½ cup Randall Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 2 Tbsp. milk powder
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour (may sub gluten free flour)
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- ½ tsp. kosher salt
- 2 Tbsp. milk powder
- ½ cup crushed peppermint sticks
- sprinkles and other edible, seasonal decorative toppings
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together on medium high speed until smooth and fluffy (3-5 minutes). Sift in the milk powder and mix until incorporated. Meanwhile puree beans using an immersion blender or food processor.
- Add the pureed beans to the creamed butter and sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until completely smooth, scraping down the bowl as needed to incorporate. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between additions; add the vanilla and mix until combined. Scrape down the bowl. Note: the mixture may look curdled but will smooth out with the addition of dry ingredients.
- Meanwhile, sift the flour, baking soda and salt together into a bowl. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the crushed peppermint sticks.
- Refrigerate dough for 20 minutes.
- Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of dough onto the prepared pans, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake for 5-6 minutes, pull trays from oven, decorate with desired toppings. Return trays to the oven for an additional 5-6 minutes until the cookies begin to turn golden around the edges; do not overbake. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool for at least 10 minutes on the pan before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.
