Cream butter & sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg, vanilla, peppermint, salt and flour.

Divide dough into two. Stir food colouring into one half. If you are making green/white or red/white candy canes leave the other half uncoloured. If you are making red/green candy canes you will need to colour both halves of dough. Keep adding food colouring (and mixing well) until you reach desired colour. Wrap each section in saran wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Take a small portion of each colour of dough out of the refrigerator. Pick a colour and get started!

Take a teaspoon of dough and roll into a 4 inch long snake. Do the same with the other half of dough. You will need to work fairly quickly as the dough warms up in your hands and becomes harder to work with.

Carefully twist the snakes together and bend into a candy cane shape. Place on parchment lined baking sheets. Continue on with the rest of the dough placing candy canes approximately 1 inch apart on baking sheets.

Bake for 7-8 minutes or until just a hint of brown starts on bottom of cookie.

Set baking sheets on racks to cool (cookies will be to delicate to handle otherwise). Once able to remove cookies place on cooling racks until completely cooled. Store in sealed container.