I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I made some Christmas cookies over the weekend and they came out pretty darn good. Justin and I had plans to go to my friend Laurel’s place for a tree trimming bash on Saturday night, so I wanted to make a dessert to bring with us. Something minty seemed like the obvious choice for a Christmas party, so I decided on mint chocolate chocolate chip cookies.

The recipe is similar to some other cookie recipes that I have posted in that they don’t call for a boatload of butter – about half a stick as opposed to the full stick that some of the traditional recipes use. It doesn’t affect the taste but they might get a little dry if you leave them sitting for a few days. Luckily that wasn’t an issue here.

I doubled the recipe and made a  batch of cookies to bring to the party, covered and refrigerated the other half of the dough, and made a second batch on Sunday to put out at my Mom’s birthday bash. The dough refrigerates well, so that wasn’t an issue.

I think Justin was trying to sweet talk me or something because he likened the cookies to Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies, which are a favorite of his, so consider these bad boys SoA’d:

He’s probably trying to avoid getting coal in his stocking or something. Either way, I’ll take the compliment.

Peppermint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes: 2 dozen cookies / prep time: 10 minutes / bake time: 12-15 minutes

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
• 5 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 1/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and white sugar for 2-3 minutes on medium speed, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Add in the egg, vanilla extract and peppermint extract and beat until combined. Set the speed to low and slowly add in the flour mixture. Mix in the chocolate chips by hand. If the dough is too sticky to handle, cover and refrigerate it for half an hour. Drop the dough by rounded tablespoon onto the cookie sheets, leaving some space in between each cookie. Bake the cookie sheets one at a time for 12-15 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through. Leave the cookies on the sheet for 10 minutes and the transfer to a cooling rack.