Thin Mint Cookies from Pattie Tierney

Today I welcome back one of my favorite food bloggers, Pattie Tierney. Pattie and I share a love of mysteries and chocolate!  Be sure and check out her Blogs. Pattie has a passion for family, travel, dining, photography, gardening, making mystery and literary jewelry, and loves all things mysterious! Check out her blog Olla-Podrida for recipes, fabulous food photography and so much more. 

Girl Scout's Beware: You may lose cookie sales with this Thin Mint Clone!

THIN MINT COOKIES FROM PATTIE TIERNEY

Pattie Tierney:

This cookie is so easy to make you won't believe it, and you‚ll spend the rest of your life thanking me for giving you the recipe. Well, maybe you'll thank me just once, but profusely. To illustrate just how easy these are, let me set the scene in which I first prepared them.

It was Christmas night. My husband and I were involved in various preparations for our Boxing Day dinner the following day. He insisted, as usual, in standing in front of me at every turn. He also insisted upon helping me out by offering to make a couple of the sauces I needed for desserts namely caramel (that he burned beyond recognition) and mocha chocolate fudge (that came out just fine). I was trying to ice cookies that I'd made earlier in the day, and melt chocolate to sandwich others together. It was about 2 or 3 in the morning, who knows, really, as by this time it was all a blur; a Rocky marathon was running endlessly in the background, heaven knows why. I was punchy with exhaustion and happy to have finished what needed to be done. But when I looked into my little chocolate melting pan I found at least a cup of melted chocolate still remained. Not one to ever waste chocolate, yet knowing I couldn't put away this much by the spoonful, I remembered a little process my daughter-in-law had told me about wherein Ritz crackers are dipped into melted chocolate that has been flavored with peppermint extract, thoroughly coated, briefly refrigerated, and end up tasting like Thin Mints.

I was leery. Years prior I'd tried Semi-Homemade Sandra Lee's idea of doing this same thing with vanilla wafers. The reaction I got from my oldest son when he tasted one was, "Hey what is this? A vanilla wafer covered with chocolate?" Uh, yep, that's what it is.

Okay, it's worth a try, I thought. I pulled out a sleeve of Ritz crackers, dug out the peppermint extract (and felt fortunate that, first appearance to the contrary, the jar was not empty but had about 1/2 tsp. of extract coating the bottom of the bottle). I poured it into the chocolate, gave it a quick stir and began dropping the crackers into the melted mixture. It was almost too easy. I used a fork to flip them over in order to coat both sides, picked them up with my thumb and index fingers, and gave them a little back-and-forth shake in order to smooth out the top. I plunked them down on a piece of parchment and slid them into my packed fridge. Ten minutes later they were ready, but to add a little seasonal festiveness to an otherwise dullish appearance, I grabbed my bag of Ghirardelli green mint chips, melted about an eighth of a cup in a coffee mug in the microwave, dipped a fork into the mixture and just flung it back and forth over the tops of the cookies. They looked great, people loved them, and so did I!

I don't think there are really any specifics when it comes to amounts. I used a mixture of Ghirardelli semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips and enough mint extract to have the flavor land somewhere between the punch of Listerine and having you just say "Ahhhh."

All in all, chilling time included, I'd say these took me less than half an hour to complete. Leave the additional topping off and you can have a real treat in probably twenty minutes. Imagine! These were so good that I'll never buy a Thin Mint again.

Girl Scout Thin Mint Clone

1 12-oz. bag chocolate chips
3-4 drops peppermint oil
A sleeve of Ritz Crackers

Melt the chocolate over simmering water in the top of a double boiler. Add peppermint oil to taste. Dip crackers, coating well with chocolate, and place onto waxed paper to set.