Thin Minties October 10
Occasionally, when attempting to organise my freezer, I will come across some forgotten bit of food. I’m good about keeping dates on things like meat products, so I don’t usually find anything icky, but perhaps I will com across a roll of unsliced cookie dough or a baggie of frozen cupcakes. One other thing I find with regularity, once a year, is a forgotten package or two of Girl Scout cookies. This year, there were none for me to find because, though Girl Scouts is a wholesome organisation by all accounts, their cookies are full of not-so-wholesome trans fats. Yum. Struck by a sudden nostalgia for these, I decided to have a go at some similar cookies.
These cookies are inspired by the popular Thin Mint cookies. Thin mints are a crispy chocolate wafer covered in a mint flavored, chocolate-like shell. I opted to mint-flavor my cookies and forgo the chocolate coating. They don’t use real chocolate anyway, as you can see from the ingredients. Make sure to bake these long enough, or they won’t be crispy. It really repends on how thick you cut the cookies, so try baking a few as a test batch and letting them cool and crisp up before baking the rest. Mine were crunchy, chocolatey and had a nice hint of mint. They are slice and bake cookies, so the dough can be prepared in advance and left in the freezer. If you want to, drizzle a little melted chocolate over the tops of the cookies once they’re cool.
Thin Minties
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup milk (I used skim)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp peppermint extract
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. With the mixer on low speed, add in the milk and the extracts. Mixture will look curdled. Gradually, add in the flour mixture until fully incorporated.
Shape dough into two logs, about 1 1/2 inches (or about 4 cm) in diameter, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for at least 1-2 hours, until dough is very firm.
Preheat oven to 375F before slicing your cookies.
Slice dough into rounds not more than 1/4 inch thick and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cookies will not spread very much.
Bake at 375F for 13-15 minutes. Cookies should be crisp when they cool.
Drizzle with melted chocolate, if desired.
Makes 3 1/2-4 dozen thin cookies.
Reminders and Announcements:
Blogging By Mail 3 has just been anounced! This round is hosted by Cathy, of my little kitchen. Her theme of “Home for the Holidays” will have us all tucking some holiday favorites and the food sections from our local papers into our packages. The deadline for signups is October 23rd, so don’t wait! Keep an eye out for the roundup of some of the goodies that were shipped out this round at the samantha files. If you haven’t send Samantha a link to your post, please head over and do so!
And how could we forget SHF and IMBB this month?
- Lovescool is hosting a Dark Chocolate anniversary edition of Sugar High Friday.
- Kitchen Chick has the next Is My Blog Burning event all puffed up with her Souffle theme.
If you’re worried about getting your egg whites just right, why don’t you check out my Cooking School: How to Beat Egg Whites for a little more infomation and tips. You can even do a trial run with the very easy Overripe Banana Souffles.
Anne Oct 10
Oh, excellent. I need a slice-and-bake recipe for this weekend, and this sounds really nice. Now, if I can only find a REALLY good cut-out-cookie recipe, too…
Cathy Oct 10
Ha! Guess today’s theme is chocolate and mint!
Well, I know I’d like these and I love the idea of having cookie dough ready and waiting in the freezer.
Stephanie Oct 10
Ooooohhooooo….Matt is going to love this! Thanks so much! I may give them a try soon. You know, in my copious free time…
J Oct 10
hi nic, sounds delectable…also, lovely picture - i really like the choice of primary green as your background colour!
Nic Oct 10
Anne - I think I know where you can find one…
Cathy - I didn’t even know that the mint brownies would be up today! If you want to have some really minty cookies, add a bit of extract to the chocolate drizzle, too.
Stephanie - The beauty of the slice and bake cookie is that they’ll be ready any time - even o nbusy days.
J - Thanks! The Girl Scout cookies traditionally come in green boxes, so I was inspired by that.
Mika Oct 10
Love your mint-chocolate slice and bake cookie. Great photo as usual! It will also probably make a great sandwich cookie with ganache.
Nic Oct 12
Mika - Great idea. These would make a terrific sandwich cookie.
Bad Hippie Mar 7
Do you have an alternative for the 1/4 cup of cornstarch in this recipe? Weird as it may sound, I am allergic to corn, corn startch, corn syrup, etc… I’d love to make thin minties, but don’t want to be sick after eating a few!
jenadele Jun 23
Bad Hippie- I am also allergic to all corn products, and soy and dairy. You can use arrowroot or potato starch instead of corn starch. I also used hemp milk instead of cow. And evaporated cane juice instead of white sugar. Yum! Thanks for another awesome recipe!
Sam Greene Feb 12
I think these work reallywell, and great to keep handy in the freezer, i think next time i will add some more peppermint.
Thanks for this one