Double Mint Chocolate Cookies

This was taken before the chocolate set. And by the way,
my chocolate looks lumpy because it started to seize.

It's getting cold. I have been craving peppermint like a mad dog lately. So when I saw that my favorite grocery store was selling peppermint extract for 2$ a bottle, I got some. I'm going to have a lot of fun making up things with peppermint, so look out!

I made this last night and my family raved. That's saying a lot. They're not easily wowed these days. It's like, "Yeah, mom can cook. Duh. Pass the gravy." So I was feeling pretty tingly when they kept coming up to me with animated faces and enthusiastic praise. Now you go make these and get some praise too!

First, the cookie bottom:

1/2 cup of REAL butter, softened

1 cup of sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract (careful with this stuff!)

----------------------------------------------------------------------Cream those things together.

2 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

salt

----------------------------------------------------------------------Sift those things together.

Mix the flour stuff with the butter-sugar stuff. I used my hand and really mashed it all together, feeling around to get the butter clumps out and make sure there are no clumps of flour or cocoa powder. You want it a very fine dough.

Take some wax paper, tin foil or parchment paper and roll your dough up into a 1 1/2 inch tube. Put it in the freezer for half an hour or so. When it's had a chance to harden up, unwrap it and slice it up into 1/4" slices.

You're going to want to cut your tube in half, and only cut/cook one tube at a time. You get about 20 or so per tube.

Try to get them as uniform as possible. Have your oven preheated to 350F. Bake these cookie disks for 8 to 10 minutes.

Notice there is no leavening in the recipe? These cookie discs won't lose their shape in the oven. 

Take them out and cool them.



Peppermint Cream Filling:

2 cups of granulated sugar - OR 3 cups of packaged powdered sugar
Blender
1 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
A few tablespoons of water.

Whenever I make powdered sugar in the blender, it comes out just a little bit gritty. I don't mind it for something like this, but if you want a smoother filling then you'll want to buy a bag of confectioner's sugar from the store.
Either way, a blender or similar appliance is necessary.

Put your sugar into the blender and blend at top speed until you have powdered it as much as it will go.
Slowly add a tablespoon of water. It will begin to clump up.

Add in your peppermint extract. Continue adding water, a teaspoon at a time, until all of the sugar has been incorporated.

You want it as THICK as it can be while all of the sugar is dampened. You will have a strange mixture that you can shape and form, but it will slump after a minute or two. That's perfect!

Grab a marble and a half sized piece of your cream and press it down onto a cookie. They will actually harden up as they sit there, and the dampness from the filling will bond it to your dry little cookie.

After you have done this, give them a half an hour or so to  to set up.











Dipping:

3 bags of semi-sweet chocolate chips
(You can use paraffin if you desire, but I was fine letting mine harden over night).

Melt your chips in a large bowl, in the microwave - stirring after every minute. You don't want your chocolate runny, but more of a pudding consistency so that it's nice and thick on your cookies. If you want less chocolate, cook it longer.

I normally do it that way, but due to distraction I was not thinking straight and melted them on the stove. This caused burning and seizing. In the end, the chocolate came out okay, but a little bumpy.

Let these sit as long as they need to, to harden up. Mine actually needed all night, but I suspect that had to do with the chocolate seizing.