These are a beautiful treat for Easter or Mother's Day!
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Table of Contents
🗝️ Key takeaways
- Peppermint meltaway cookies are delicate melt-in-your-mouth cookies that are easy to make with just a few simple ingredients.
- Serve mint meltaways at a baby shower, wedding shower, holiday party, cookie swap, or another special occasion any time of year! I especially like the pastel colors for Easter.
- Cornstarch is the magic ingredient that gives these soft cookies their consistency.
The melt-in-your-mouth texture of these buttery cookies is a cross between Mexican wedding cookies and shortbread cookies.
They’re the perfect holiday cookie for Easter, Christmas season, or Valentine’s Day—just change up the food coloring to match any theme!
🧾 Ingredients
This is an overview of the ingredients. You'll find the full measurements and instructions in the green recipe card (printable) at the bottom of the page.
📖 Variations
- I use unsalted butter in my meltaway cookies. You can use salted butter if you’d like to balance out the sweetness in the cookie dough.
- Some meltaway cookie recipes use cake flour, which creates a very delicate cookie. To replace the all-purpose flour with cake flour, adjust the measurement—use 2 ½ cups plus half a tablespoon total of cake flour.
- It’s easy to customize this simple recipe with different flavors. Just replace the mint extract with vanilla extract, lemon extract, almond extract, or any other extract you like.
- Use pastel colors for Easter, pink and red for Valentine’s Day, or turn each meltaway into a Christmas cookie with green and red food coloring!
- Feel free to spread cream cheese frosting, almond frosting, or a lemony glaze on top of the cookies.
- Sometimes I dip half the cookie in melted chocolate or white chocolate then add sprinkles. So pretty!
🔪 Instructions
This is an overview of the instructions. Full instructions are in the green recipe card at the bottom of the page. Click on the image to see it full size.
Add the softened butter and confectioners’ sugar to a large bowl.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Gradually mix in the cornstarch and flour until a sticky dough forms.
Add the extracts.
Combine each portion of cookie dough in a separate bowl with the desired food coloring.
Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place onto the prepared baking sheets.
Lightly press the tops of the cookies with a floured fork.
Top with nonpareils, then bake cookies at 300 degrees F for 20-22 minutes.
🍴 Equipment
- Mixing bowls
- Baking sheet
- Electric mixer (handheld) or stand mixer
🥫 How to store leftover meltaway cookies
Store leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to four days. Separate each layer of cookies with a piece of wax paper or parchment paper so they don’t stick together.
I don’t recommend refrigerating meltaway cookies since condensation will ruin their texture.
However, you can freeze baked meltaway cookies in an airtight container for up to three months—though they're best within about two weeks. Place parchment or wax paper between the layers. Thaw frozen cookies at room temperature for about 30 minutes and enjoy!
Expert tip:
The dough is soft and sticky, so dust your hands with cornstarch before you shape it—especially if you have warm hands like me!
💭 Things to know
- You’ll need to mix the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with an electric hand mixer.
- Let your butter soften to room temperature so you can easily cream it with the confectioner’s sugar.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients on low speed until just combined. Higher speeds can toss the flour, powdered sugar, or cornstarch outside of the bowl, plus you also risk overmixing the dough.
- You can also flatten the tops of your cookies with the bottom of a glass or measuring cup that’s been greased with non-stick cooking spray and dipped in cornstarch.
- I like to line aluminum pans with parchment paper.
- Let the baked cookies sit on the baking sheet for 5 minutes to firm up before placing them on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Top your homemade cookies with nonpareils, sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, colored sugar crystals, or crushed candy canes for extra flavor and decoration!
👩🍳 FAQs
Meltaway cookies are soft, tender cookies similar to a sweet shortbread cookie. The combination of powdered sugar, cornstarch, and butter creates that classic melt-in-your-mouth texture that’s impossible to resist!
You can, but you’ll need to adjust the amount of flour in the recipe. Cake flour is finer and lighter than all-purpose flour. Replace every cup of all-purpose flour with 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of cake flour. For this recipe, that means you’ll need 2 ½ cups plus half a tablespoon of cake flour.
Absolutely! This is an easy cookie recipe to customize. Replace the mint extract with more vanilla extract to make vanilla meltaway cookies. Use almond extract for almond meltaway cookies or lemon extract for lemon meltaway cookies. You can also top your baked cookies with flavored icing, frosting, or glazes.
Yep! These are great cookies for freezing! Place them in an airtight container or freezer bag, separating layers with parchment paper or wax paper to prevent sticking. You can freeze meltaway cookies for up to 3 months, but they're best enjoyed within 2 weeks of freezing. Let them thaw at room temperature for about 30 minutes before enjoying.
Sure thing. It's easy to freeze dough as a log or already formed into cookies. I wrote a full post about freezing cookies and cookie dough—you can find it here, along with all the details.
📚 Related recipes
- Old-fashioned Cream Cheese Butter Mints are a vintage candy recipe perfect for after-dinner mints, your next party’s cookie tray, or a simple sweet snack.
- Chewy and soft, my Bakery Sugar Cookies Recipe is full of sweet flavor and taste just like the ones from your favorite bakery shop!
- Maple Pecan Sandies Cookies—also called Mexican wedding cake cookies or pecan meltaways—are some of my favorite cookies to enjoy on a quiet afternoon with a hot mug of tea!
📞 The last word
I love mint and so I'm happy to have the flavor all year long but if you prefer almond or vanilla (or whatever) go right ahead and change the extract used!
These are so easy to make and they are so pretty for Spring!
If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need.
If you're a fan of this recipe, drop a comment below and give it 5 stars! Thank you!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📖 Recipe
Mint Meltaway Cookies
Print Pin Recipe Rate RecipeIngredients
- 1 ½ cups butter, softened
- ¾ cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cups cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon mint extract
- pastel food colors
- Nonpareils
Instructions
- Mix flour and cornstarch.
- Cream butter and powdered sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
- Slowly add flour mixture.
- Beat until well blended.
- With hands lightly dusted with additional cornstarch, roll dough into 1-in. balls.
- Place 1 inch apart on parchment paper covered or ungreased baking sheets.
- Press lightly with a floured fork to flatten cookie. (Like for peanut butter cookies)
- Top with nonpareils or sprinkles.
- Bake at 300° for 20-22 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned.
- Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans.
Notes
- Let your butter soften to room temperature so you can easily cream it with the confectioner’s sugar.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients on low speed until just combined.
- You can also flatten the tops of your cookies with the bottom of a glass or measuring cup that’s been greased with non-stick cooking spray and dipped in cornstarch.
- Since these cookies contain so much butter, there’s no need to grease a non-stick cookie sheet. However, you’ll need to line aluminum pans with parchment paper.
- Let the baked cookies sit on the baking sheet for 5 minutes to firm up before placing them on a wire rack to cool completely.
Nutrition Facts
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
This recipe has been tested several times. If you choose to use other ingredients, or change the technique in some way, the results may not be the same.
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