Since moving to Madison from Indiana, my friends here have become part of my family. They are my cheerleaders, my counselors and, of course, my baked good recipients.
This past weekend I turned 22 (cue Taylor Swift) and three of my best friends gave me a random collection of ingredients. I sat there trying to figure out how to pair white vinegar with Andes chocolate mints or cocoa powder. That recipe would be 100 percent worse than bacon pie.
Turns out, they also got me a brand new baking cookbook written by the “Ace of Cakes” himself Duff Goldman. All of the gifted ingredients were ones my friends knew I might not already have, but were necessary for two different recipes they picked out for me to try.
Obviously, I was fairly pumped to find out I had a million new recipes to try out. So, while I love making my own recipes, this week I needed to try out this new recipe for mint chocolate cookies.
If you were curious, the other recipe was for birthday cake because they figured I could probably make my own cake better than a store bought one.
The process
Start off by setting your oven to 350 F. While most recipes tell you to put oil on the bottom of the pan, I am a strong advocate of using parchment paper when making cookies.
This recipe has so much butter, you don’t need more oil. The parchment paper soaks up some of the excess oil, and it makes it so much easier to get the cookies off the pan.
Mix together the dry ingredients, trying to get rid of any large clumps.
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Take out a different bowl to whip up the butter and sugar with your hand or use standing mixer. You can do this without a mixer for a really great arm workout. Once mixed, it should be light and airy.
Add the eggs, vanilla and peppermint extract. Make sure everything is very well mixed to distribute the strong extract flavors.
Pour in the dry ingredients. The batter will be extremely thick, so don’t bother with mixer — just use your hands.
Add in the chocolate chips and Andes mint chocolates. Make sure the Andes are broken up into smaller pieces.
Once everything is evenly mixed, take the dough in small chunks and roll each one into a ball.
Take two fingers and press down the balls until each is about 1 inch thick. Give space between the cookies since they will expand.
Bake for about 15 minutes. The cookies will be glossy on top. While they may look slightly raw, they are not. It’s just the super melty chocolate on the inside.
These cookies made me so happy. I took a bite and all of my problems seemed to slip away, forcing me into a euphoric chocolate food coma.
The recipe
