Thin Mint Cookies

Apparently when I say 'tomorrow' I really mean '3 days later'. We have more family in town now, who we have been anxiously waiting for. So our extra time is starting to disappear, but we really don't mind! Tradition has us opening presents tonight at my in-law's and tomorrow for Hubby and I.

Now on to the Girlscout Thin Mint Cookies.

I found this recipe on Pinterest, where I seem to be finding some wonderful and unique recipes, and couldn't not try it.

My first warning on this recipe is to completely ignore the 'total time' the recipe lists. It is completely not accurate! I'll tally my time as we go here.

First up...the wafer:

Made from a box of fudge cake mix, flour, shortening, an egg and the smallest amount of water I thought could possibly work all mixed together.  At this point I was extremely thankful for my Kitchen-aid mixer as it's a beast to stir. Once everything is blended together you chill the dough in the fridge for 2 hours.

So that's maybe 15 minutes to mix everything, and 2 hours in the fridge = 2:15

Second...the rolling and baking:

You're supposed to take out small chunks of the dough and do this in batches. I found the dough MUCH easier to manage once it warmed up a bit. Honestly I couldn't get it to hardly roll out at all while it was still fairly chilled. Depending upon how large your cookie sheets are, I'd take out more. They bake for 10 minutes per sheet and then need to cool completely. I let them sit over night.

More calculations: maybe 10 minutes to roll out the first set, cut, and put on cookie sheets. Then 10 minutes per round. If you can fit 30 cookies per sheet then that takes at least 40 minutes for baking (assuming you're finished rolling and cutting and prepping a 2nd sheet before the first is out of the oven). = 3:05 (not including cooling time for cookies)

Third...the chocolate mint goodness:

This part is fun, but becomes tedious fairly quickly. You take chocolate chips, shortening, and peppermint extract and warm in the microwave.

[next warning, you need 3/4 of these ingredients. If you make the full you'll have plenty of leftovers. I let mine cool on a waxed cookie sheet, chunked it up once set, then put it in a baggie in the freezer.]

It took me roughly 5 minutes to get the chocolate all melted. (I did 2/3 of the chocolate, then the other 3rd so I didn't have to use a huge bowl) Then there's the dipping, flipping, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, scraping, and gently sliding down the fork onto wax paper.

Here's my biggest tip - keep the chocolate blend warm! You'll be amazed how easier it is to coat the wafers and get onto the sheet when the chocolate is warm. They even come out looking a lot smoother and nicer (but that's the perfectionist in me too). The tapping comes into place with the cookie on a fork against the side of your bowl to get the extra chocolate off. Believe me, this is a must. But it does slow things way down. Then again, the warmer and smoother the chocolate - the easier this part is! Also - scrape off some of the dripping chocolate on the bottom of the fork and cookie on the side of the bowl when you're on your way to put it on the sheet.

Then they go into the fridge for 20 minutes or until they're set.

Final calculations: 149 cookies (hubby ate one - and the batch was only supposed to make 108?!?) took me 2 1/2 hours to coat in chocolate. Including reheating of the chocolate, and making another batch. I won't count any but the final setting time since the other cooled while more were being made, and that's 20 min. So that's a grand total of 5:30. Yes, 5 and a half hours!

If your cookies are thicker than mine you'd make fewer thus reducing the baking and coating times. But I'm happier with my thinner cookies than the thicker ones.

And I have received no shortage of compliments on these cookies! If you're up for the time and all the standing then I would definitely say make them.

[last warning, the chocolate doesn't like sitting at room temp once the cookies are set. We are keeping ours in the fridge out of necessity. After roughly 20-30 min of sitting out on a plate I picked one up only to instantly have chocolate fingers. But if they're in the fridge they aren't quite the temptation and last a lot longer! But it also makes them not as fun to have at parties.]