Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies

I was always curious why mint is associated with St. Patty’s Day. Is it because the color green makes us think of mint? Or did Saint. Patrick just have minty fresh breath all the time?

Whatever the reason, I’m a-ok with it. Anything that is mint-flavored will usually get my attention. So when I saw Andes Crème de Menthe baking chips in the baking aisle at my local grocery store, I had no choice but to throw them in my cart and daydream of all the wonderful things I could do with them.

When you love chocolate, and cookies, and cakes, and practically anything with sugar in it, it is difficult to find a balance between eating healthily and satisfying my sugar cravings. With cookies, I can make the dough for an entire batch, but only bake the ones I want to have around, freezing the other cookie balls to have my own ‘instant cookies’ later. And I’m glad I didn’t bake all of these at once. They are so good, I would have eaten every last one of them.

The chip’s mint flavor really permeates through the cookie and, if I hadn’t known otherwise, I would have thought that the dough itself might have been flavored with mint, it’s that pronounced. If the hubby liked darker cocoa, I would have used my Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder, but, since he’s more of a milk chocolate fan, I used the regular unsweetened baking cocoa. The cookies come out of the oven pretty loose, so be sure to let them cool on the baking sheet as instructed; they will fall apart to mush, otherwise. Delicious, minty chocolaty mush, but mush nonetheless. When the cookies set, they will be soft, but not chewy, and the outermost edges will be the slightest bit crisp, without being crunchy.

The best part to me about these cookies is that you can eat the cookie dough! There are no eggs in the batter, so you could easily omit the baking powder and make mint chocolate cookie dough truffles or, do what I did, and just eat it straight from the bowl. Obviously, I opted for straight from the bowl.

Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies

From Two Peas and Their Pod

Makes 2 1/2 dozen

Ingredients

1-1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup dutch-process cocoa-make sure to use dutch process for a rich/dark flavor

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cubed and room temp

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1/3 cup milk

1 - 10 bag of chips (I used Andes crème de menthe chips, but any mint chip would do – or go crazy and try peanut butter or white chocolate.. yum!)

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and line baking sheets with silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa, and set aside. Beat the butter on medium-high until light and add sugars, creaming well. Add the vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture in 2 batches, alternately with the milk in one batch, mixing well. Stir in the mint chips. Chill dough for at least 15 minutes. You can make the dough a few hours or 2 days before baking and it will be fine. Just wrap it up and keep in the fridge.

Scoop the dough onto a parchment- or silpat-lined cookie sheet, press down on them slightly, and bake for 14-15 minutes…for a normal size cookie. Let the cookies cool completely on the cookie sheet, they will set up as they cool. Store in an air-tight container, they will stay fresh for a couple of days.

If Freezing: Scoop the dough as you would when baking it and line up as many of the dough balls on a baking sheet that will fit. Then place the baking sheet in the freezer until all of the dough balls are completely frozen. At that point, you can put all of the dough balls into a freezer bag. To bake from frozen, extend the baking time to 15-17 minutes. And, even if they are underbaked, it's ok, no egg!