Day 6: Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

It is that time of year again! Every adorable little girl you know will be asking you to buy those irresistible boxes of goodness. Otherwise known as girl scout cookies.

We were at my aunt and uncle's house last week and my cousin's adorable daughter was selling cookies for the first time.
She started out a little shy, but boy did she open up once she realized that not one of us could say no to her beautiful little face. By the end of the night she was so excited. She was holding the order form shouting: "Daddy, Daddy I earned my patch!!!"

Girl scout cookies pretty much sell themselves. One of our favorites are the thin mints (especially when they are frozen, yummm!).

The idea of the delicious combination of mint and chocolate inspired this cookie of the day. I found this recipe on a great blog by Jennifer Hill a Vancouver dietitian and a seeming cool chick, foodess.com.

Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

(adapted from gourmet magazine found on foodess.com)

1 cup butter, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp peppermint extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in large bowl until well blended.
Beat in eggs and peppermint extract.
Gradually add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt and beat until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips.
Form dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets.
Flatten balls slightly.
Bake cookies until edges begin to firm but center still appears soft, about 9 minutes.
Cool on baking sheets 5 minutes.
Transfer cookies to racks and cool completely.

OOPS!!! Well...this is a challenge and with this recipe I made a couple of BIG mistakes. The cookies look good, but in my opinion tasted like you were biting into an Altoids!

I had to work in the morning (I work part time at a friend's church for a mom's day out program) and we had a teacher meeting after the kids went home. I usually will be back home after work by 12:30pm. Today, I didn't walk into the door until almost 2:00pm. I immediately started in on the day's batch before I had to leave to pick Noah up from middle school at 2:45pm.

Being crunched for time I got careless. I misread the recipe and added 2 TABLESPOONS of mint extract to the dough, then I forgot to add the chocolate chips! I decided to add the chocolate chips to the top and to bake the cookies with the...let's just say extra...amount of mint flavor.

Expecting the worse as the kids tried their daily cookie, I was surprised with their reactions.

Noah: "Love 'em. Spectacular. Fantastic."

 Ian: "Good, VERY good. I love it!"

Dane: "Minty!"

If you haven't noticed by now, Dane is a little camera shy.

 Eventually I may get a picture of him eating a cookie (I'm not making any promises).



Day 5: Maple Syrup Cookies

We at the Z household are still nursing our holiday hangover. We had such a great end to 2011. We attended and had parties, spent time with family and friends, went to see Wicked at the Detroit Opera House and even told the boys we will be taking a family trip to Disney in February.

One of my favorite traditions is sitting with the boys and watching Christmas movies. Our top pick for the past couple years has been the hilarious movie, Elf. The boys cannot get enough of Buddy the Elf. They even convinced their grandmother to let them adorn their pasta with syrup!! Seriously, they did.

As the boys were leaving for school I asked them for some cookie suggestions.

Dane: "I know! A maple syrup cookie, just like Buddy the Elf. But, you can leave out the spaghetti."

I found a few different maple cookie recipes on allrecipe.com and adapted this one from Maple Cookies by Craig Gund.

Buddy's Maple Syrup Cookie

(adapted from Maple Cookies on allrecipe.com)

1/2 C Butter Softened

1/2 C Packed Dark Brown Sugar

1 egg YOKE ONLY

1/2 C Maple Syrup

1/2 tsp Vanilla

2 C Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Nutmeg

1 and 1/2 tsp of Sugar sprinkled with Nutmeg for Decoration

        

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and dark brown sugar together.

Add in egg yoke, maple syrup, and vanilla. Mix well. 

Sift together flour, salt and baking soda.

 

Add sifted dry ingredients to the dough and mix.

Make a teaspoon sized ball and drop it into the decorative sugar (1/4 c sugar sprinkled with nutmeg)

Shake bowl to cover the cookie dough.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 9-12 minutes.

Cool on the cookie sheet for 1 minute, transfer to a wire rack to complete cooling.

Ian: "Awesome."
Noah: "They taste like animal crackers."
Dane: "Buddy the Elf would love these!!"