Thin Mints

I was searching Pinterest a couple weeks ago in my quest for new cookie recipes and came across this great recipe for the classic Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie. Since this was my favorite childhood cookies, I knew I had to try it; however, I also wanted to make it a little more festive for the holiday season. In researching several recipes, I noticed that most of them called for flavoring the chocolate with mint. I have been dying to use my snowflake cookie cutter (my absolute favorite cutter) and because of the overpowering nature of mint, I figured that the flavor of the chocolate would be buried a bit - so white chocolate could be substituted.

Surprisingly, the cookies themselves proved extremely easy to mix, cut, and bake. The only major issue I had due to the fact that my small toaster oven only allowed me to bake three cookies at a time. I had to cut and re-roll the dough several times over the course of the evening, and the dough definitely incorporated a lot of extra flour during all these extra rollings. (Had I been using a regular over and larger cookie sheets, this wouldn't have been a problem.) ANother problem I had at first was the cookies cracking when I tried to remove them from the cookie sheet (this was before I discovered that they needed to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to the wire rack.) I'm assuming this would be less of a problem if a more basic (round) shape cookie cutter were used.)

When it came time to dip the cookies, I had no problems melting the chocolate (though it did require a couple tablespoons of shortening to get a silky smoothness.) Unfortunately, I found that when I actually dipped my cookie the weight of the added chocolate broke several more of my snowflakes. (I can definitely see why the Girl Scouts stick with basic circles!) However, after a couple cookie disasters (or sampling opportunities, if you want to be more positive), I mastered the dipping process. Sadly, my 2 cup bag of white chocolate only provided enough to coat about half my cookies. Fortunately, the cookies do taste exactly how I remember thin mints, and they are just as addictive!


Thin Mints
(yields 3-4 dozen cookies)

1 c. butter, room temperature
1 c. powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ t. salt
1½ c. flour

Chocolate Coating
1 package baking chocolate (I used white chocolate, the but traditional recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate)
1 t. peppermint extract
1-2 T. shortening (if needed to achieve creaminess)

Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Mix in powdered sugar and continue to cream. Stir in the vanilla extract and cocoa powder. (THe batter will be the consistency of a thick frosting.) Add the flour and mix until all the flour is incorporated. Form the dough into two flatten discs and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. Roll out dough on a floured surface (dough should be extremely thin - about &frac18".) Cut your desired cooking shapes and place on a cookie sheet. (These cookies do not expand much, so feel free to place them quite close.) Bake at 350°F (177°C) for 10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool for about 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack. When the cookies are completely cooled, melt chocolate and peppermint extract (I had to add a couple tablespoons of shortening to get the desired smoothness from my white chocolate.) Using a fork, dip the cookies in the mint chocolate mixture and place on parchment paper. Refrigerate or freeze to set chocolate.