My good friend Claire is biking across the country this summer (http://www.bikeandbuild.org/) and before she left I promised I would send many goodies to keep her going for over 4,000 miles. Her first mail pick up is tomorrow, so I made some of my favorite cookies to send her way. The first time I was graced with these cookies was from my freshman year college roommate's mom, but it was just this year that I decided to make them on my own. I love these pieces of heaven because there are not many ingredients, they taste delicious, this recipe makes a ton, and I think people think they are a lot of work even though they are so easy! This is my first experience shipping any sort of home made goodie, so I hope they make it, and the bikers can enjoy a sweet treat (or just Claire, but I sent over 40, so I hope she shares)!
Ingredients:
-2 packages Andes Mints (28 mints in each)
-¾ cup butter
-½ cup of brown sugar
-2 tablespoons water
-1 package (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips
-2 large eggs
-2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
-1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
Instructions:
1. Unwrap mints & set aside. In a saucepan, heat & mix together the butter,sugar & water. Add the chocolate chips and stir to partially melt. Remove from the heat andcontinue to stir until melted.
2. Pour into a bowl, let cool for 10 minutes. Beat in the eggs @ high speed. Add the remaining ingredients & beat to blend.
3. Chill the dough for 1 hour (at least). Line baking sheets with foil. Roll the dough into small balls(about 1” diameter). Bake @350° F for 10-12 minutes. Place a mint on each cookie as you remove them from the oven. Once candies have melted, spread with the back of a spoon.
4. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet.
5. Unless you have a ton of counter space, I suggest placing the cookies in the freezer for a few minutes to set the chocolate so you can store them.
Another delicious recipe by who other than Martha?! I love that these are actually brownies in cupcake form and the peppermint patty center melts perfectly to give the entire cupcake a hint of mint. I also really liked that these did not call for a frosting (and it was not needed, they were plenty rich and flavorful on their own). Because there was not any frosting these were super easy to transport to the BBQ I was headed to. I purchased a large bag of peppermint patties so I thought it would be cute to make these cupcakes in a mini version. I tested this out by making 4 mini's first. I think the mini version would work with junior mints, but the small peppermint patties were still too large. The mint spewed out of the tops of the cupcakes and made a huge disaster. In fact, the tops popped right off the mini's. I'll have to try these again with junior mints, because a large cupcake is actually nearing too rich, even for me, which is next to impossible! Although if I make them as mini's I may just have to top them off with a bailey's frosting or something of the sort. I was a little disappointed that mine also didn't have the pretty cream center like the picture shows in the book, so I just went with the peppermint patty pic. Since I don't feel right about publishing a recipe that Martha does not have on her website, I'll let the St. Petersburg Times do it for me.
