Triple Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
I’m going to dive head first into this blog with a recipe for triple chocolate peppermint cookies. This recipe is really fun to me because it started with a recipe I found on Pinterest while hunting for a delicious treat for a Holiday Cookie Swap/Christmas Party. I considered the obvious standby of Christmas cookies, a recipe that has been a favorite of mine since childhood, but I wanted to branch out.
I found a recipe for mint chocolate cookies and they were fabulous. I’ve made them multiple times since then, each time tweaking and playing with the recipe. I’ve since settled on a variation that I love and thought it fitting to share as my first post.
The first incarnation of this tasty sweet involved fresh mint leaves, hand chopped into the finest little pieces. Delicious but tedious. Then I got an herb mill. That helped, but it clogged up quite a bit and my greenish-brown thumb combined with poor sunlight around the house meant maintaining a mint plant was out of the question. The daunting task of driving a whole five minutes to the nearest grocery store was usually enough to talk me out of making these gems. Enter essential oils. Yup. Peppermint essential oil to the rescue (click to learn more about the only brand of essential oils I use). Tastes just as delicious as fresh picked mint with none of the effort.
Peppermint plus two different types of chocolate chips basically means I’m in heaven. Personally, I like to mix dark chocolate and milk chocolate chips, but I’ve also tried mixing multiple types of dark and super dark chocolates. All are amazingly delicious, so I’d recommending experimenting yourself and finding what combination is most pleasing to YOUR sweet tooth.
Anywho, here it is. My recipe for Triple Chocolate Peppermint Cookies. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup cocoa
- 1 tsp baking sodas
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 cup cane sugar
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1 cup milk chocolate chips
- 10 to 15 drops Peppermint Essential Oil
**NEVER ingest essential oils that are not safe for internal use – check the bottle and when in doubt, don’t use it!**
Directions:
Cream together butter, brown sugar, and cane sugar with a mixer. When creamy, add vanilla and eggs. Beat until fluffy. In a separate bowl, combine remaining dry ingredients (not including chocolate chips). Add this mixture to the sugar/butter/egg mixture a couple spoonfuls at a time (bonus tip: drape a slightly-moistened dish towel over your mixer while blending in the cocoa mixture. This will prevent cocoa from coating you and your kitchen). Add Peppermint Essential Oil – I like to add a couple drops to different areas of the bowl while the mixer is running to make sure it’s well distributed. Add chocolate chips until well combined. Roll into a solid ball, wrap in airtight plastic wrap or container, chill in fridge for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Scoop dough onto prepared pans (I use air bake cookie sheets, but this is a great time to use that silpat chilling in your pantry if you have one). Bake for about 12 minutes. Remove and let cool on a rack.
If you don’t want to use all the dough at once, line a tray with parchment paper, scoop dough into balls, place in freeze to chill. Once frozen, toss your dough balls into a freezer-safe container and pull them out a few at a time for fresh baked cookies any day of the week.
