Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

I think we’ve just about exhausted the possibilities for mint chocolate chip desserts.  Seeley has made ice cream and cake, and now I'm doing cookies.  Ever since Hubby saw a picture of mint chocolate chip cookies online somewhere, he’s been wanting me to make them.  More than the mint and chocolate, I think it was probably the green color that caught his attention.  Initially, I had the fabulous idea of juicing mint leaves to use for coloring.  As it turns out, mint leaves don’t produce green juice, it’s brown.  Ok, perhaps not such a fabulous idea.  I thought about using spinach instead, like I did when I made these colorful cookies, but I was afraid the idea of spinach in mint cookies might turn people off a bit.  (Although, I can vouch for the fact that you can’t actually taste spinach juice in cookies.)  Anyway, in the end, I broke down and bought some natural food coloring. 

And for the mint flavor, I used this.  It’s just peppermint oil mixed with sunflower oil. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• ½ cup butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon peppermint flavoring
• Food coloring
• 1 ½ cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chocolate chips

 

Cookies come together fairly quickly, so go ahead and preheat your oven to 350° before you begin.  As usual, your ingredients need to be at room temperature.  If you didn’t plan ahead, see what to do here.  Drop your butter into a mixing bowl along with the sugar. 

Whip them together until it becomes light in color and fluffy.

Add the egg. 

Mix until the egg is completely incorporated, scraping everything down a time or two. 

Add the vanilla and peppermint. 

When those are incorporated, start adding your food coloring.  If you’re using natural food coloring, it will take way more than the scary artificial stuff.  I ended up using probably a teaspoon between the blue and yellow. 

Continue to add a little at a time until you arrive at a color you’re happy with. 

Add the flour, soda, powder, and salt. 

Mix until that comes together, scraping everything down again, then add the chocolate chips.  I took out a bit of my dough and added white chocolate chips because I love mint and white chocolate together.  For the rest, I used dark chocolate.  You’ll need a total of about 1 cup of whatever kind of chips you decide on. 

Fold those into the dough. 

Spoon balls of dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving plenty of space between them.  Mine were probably about 2 tablespoons each, which make cookies that are something like 3 inches across.

Bake at 350° for 12 minutes or so.  They should look dry on top and be starting to brown around the edges. 

The cool peppermint flavor mixed with the warm chewy cookie and the creamy, gooeyness (yes, that’s a word) of the chocolate is a perfect combination.

As for the color, I think next time I’ll go with spinach.  It really does give a better color than the food coloring. 

What mint chocolate dessert have we missed that you’d like to see us make?

Kiwi Muffins

The kiwi is definitely an underutilized fruit.  I mean, who doesn’t love them?  Sweet and juicy with those fantastic little seeds.  Sadly, they seem to always be paired with strawberries, and even then, you’d be hard pressed to find them outside of a smoothie.  Well the kiwi is taking a back seat no more.  In these muffins, the kiwi is the star of the show. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 3 kiwis
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup buttermilk
• ¼ cup oil
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ½ cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 lime
• ¼ cup powdered sugar

Go ahead and preheat your oven to 350° before getting started.  I think the easiest way to peel a kiwi is to just cut the ends off, stand it up, and remove strips all the way around. 

Then just slice them and drop them into a mixing bowl.  All of the ingredients are going to eventually end up in this bowl, so make sure it’s large enough. 

Using a fork (or a potato masher if you prefer) smoosh all of the slices.  Could you skip the slicing step?  Sure.  But in my hands, that’s just asking for a kiwi on the floor.  Slices cooperate much better when being smashed. 

After a bit you should have something that looks like this:

For the people who want a measurement, I ended up with about ¾ cup of kiwi mush.

To this, add the sugar.  (If you wanted to make kiwi lime muffins, this would be a perfect place for lime sugar.)

Stir those together. 

For the wet ingredients, the easiest thing to do is measure ¼ cup buttermilk, pour in oil until it reaches the ½ cup mark, crack in the egg, and add the vanilla. 

Whisk that together and pour it into the kiwi mixture. 

Stir until that comes together. 

Sprinkle the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt over the top. 

Mix the dry ingredients together a bit, and then stir them into the wet.  Don’t over mix.  Muffins like a gentle hand, so stir until it just comes together. 

I always use parchment liners, but if you prefer to grease the pan and have to wash it afterward, that is your prerogative.  Either way, fill the cups until they’re about ¼ inch from the top. 

Pop the pans into the oven, then turn the temperature up to 425° for 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes, turn it back down to 350° and bake for an additional 12 – 14 minutes.  When they’re done, they’ll be starting to brown on top and starting to pull away from the sides of the pan.  Also, a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean. 

Give them only 3 or 4 minutes in the pan before removing them to a cooling rack.  Steam trapped in the pan isn’t good for the texture of muffins.  Then, if you can force yourself away from them (omg they smell good) allow them to cool for 10 – 15 minutes.  Then it’s time for glaze.  Squeeze the juice of half a lime into a bowl.  (I got about 1 ½ tablespoons)  Sift in ¼ cup of powdered sugar. 

Stir until it’s smooth.  Dip the top of each muffin into the glaze, then tip it and allow the excess to drip off.  You'll still probably have some glaze drip down the sides, so you'll want to place the cooling rack on top of a sheet pan or something.   

Now, I know you’re thinking glaze on muffins?  Won’t that make them too sweet?  In this case, the answer is no.  In fact, this glaze serves the opposite purpose.  It brings a nice tang to the muffins.  It also gives them a lovely finish on top.  See how pretty?

If you can wait, allow the glaze to dry.  If you just have to scarf one now, go ahead, I won’t judge you. 

What do you like to do with kiwis?

BTW, I thought you might find it entertaining to know that I always put on my geeky headphones and totally jam out while writing these posts.  It's the secret to my literary genius.  This particular episode was brought to you by Gangnam Style.  Because... why not, right?