Juicing the Mint Leaves

Mint Chip Chocolate Cookies

Mint has always been a flavor that has captivated my palate. However, despite this longstanding love affair, mint was rarely used in the sweets my mom prepared when I was young. This lead me to believe that items with mint components were incredibly exotic and that it must require Herculean efforts to impart that cool flavor to one’s dishes. In fact, my sister and I still use the term “have to juice the mint leaves” when referring to simple tasks that appear to be deceptively laborious.

Luckily, it turns out that making a delicious mint desert can be as simple as adding a few high quality mint chocolate chips to the recipe.


Add a couple cups of Guittard green mint chocolate chips to a chocolate cookie recipe and you will have a mint cookie to rival the devil-spawned (that is to say, unnaturally delicious), cocaine laden wafers purveyed by any girl scout.

Polka Dot Cookies Recipe

Adapted from the recipe from the back of the Guittard Green Mint Chips bag.
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
½ cup butter
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon coffee
2 cups (1 12 oz bag) Guittard Green Mint Chips

Method
Preheat your oven to 350oF.

Add the semisweet chips to a microwave safe bowl and heat for one minute in the ole ‘wave. Stir the chocolate and microwave for another minute. Add the butter to the chocolate and stir together until it is all melted evenly (the butter and chocolate may require an additional minute in the microwave together).


When the chocolate and butter is smooth, set it aside and combine the flour, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat eggs, sugar, vanilla and coffee until smooth and light. Add the dry ingredients to the mix until everything is evenly incorporated into the batter. Fold in the green mint chips, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place everything into the refrigerator to chill for 15 minutes.


(The Master's Glaive?)

When the cookie batter has firmed up a bit, scoop it into rounded teaspoons and drop onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes and buen apetito!

I've Got a Pocket full of Pretty Green

Actually, it’s more like two pockets and a couple of gallon-sized bags.



Some of my long-term readers might remember my ongoing quest for the illusive Guittard Green Mint Chips. To me, Guittard is the paragon for perfect white chocolate baking chips, and its green mint variety is exquisite. These chips are also incredibly difficult to track down. However, the baking God’s recently smiled upon me and guided me with divine afflatus to Bakers C&C, an amazing online resource for cake and candy making supplies.

Oh, the joy I experienced as I discovered that my beloved green mint chips were available… in bulk! After all, why buy one or two standard sized bags and risk another drought of mint goodies when I could have pounds and pounds? Seriously, there is no good reason, right? Of course not.

I placed my order and waited in anticipation for two-to-three business days until finally, my shipment had arrived. I tore through the packaging with reckless enthusiasm in search of my emerald delights.



“Delicious”, I exclaimed after reaching my prize and feasting on its splendor. “But wait…” I thought. “There is something missing, something important, something… MINT!”

What was going on here? Had the mint flavor been left out of this batch? I searched for the packing slip—“Dark Green Apeels”, it read. No mention of mint.

“Well that’s not right”, I thought as I raced to track down my receipt, only to find that sure enough, I had made a mistake and ordered the wrong item.

So now I am at a loss. I have 5 pounds of green white-chocolate apeels and no idea what to do with them. I rarely use white chocolate, and without the mint flavoring, I’m not sure that dark green makes for a particularly appetizing color. If you have any suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated!


Concerning the Bakers C&C experience, I would highly recommend them. They have a great selection of high quality baking supplies that you are unlikely to find at a brick-and-mortar shop, their prices are extremely reasonable and customer service seemed on top of things.

Overall: 4 Berries

(I'd even go with 4.5 if I had designed that version)

This site would totally get 5 berries if it calculated your shipping cost BEFORE you check out. I’m pretty familiar with ground shipping rates, as I’m sure that most bulk customers are, and was able to accurately estimate my cost, but it would still be a useful feature to include.

With that said, I fully intend to place another order for the MINT Guittard apeels through C&C this afternoon and to utilize them for my future bulk baking needs.

Chocolate and Orange

Oh, the delicious pairing of orange and chocolate! It is truly one of my favorite combinations and orangettes are fast becoming a candy staple at Casa de Pockets. For those unfamiliar with these delightful treats, orangettes are delicate strips of candied orange peel with a crisp chocolate coating; they have a soft, chewy texture and a citrus bite.

When I began researching recipes for candied orange peel, I discovered that there are a wide variety of ways of preparing them with no general consensus on the best approach, and surprisingly, few detailed instructions. Unfortunately, this lack of direction resulted in several failed batches with seized sugar, burnt peels and puddles of mush.

However, after a long process of trial and failure, Blackberry Pockets’ test kitchens were finally able to develop a method for candying orange peel, which appears to work faithfully time and time again. Hopefully, today, I can give you the direction that was denied to me and help you to create flawless candy with no waste.

Orangettes (chocolate-covered candied orange peel)

Ingredients:
The peel from 3 oranges*
3 cups of sugar
1 ½ cups of water
¼ cup of light corn syrup
8 ounces of dark chocolate

* Note: If you are not in the mood to eat 3 oranges and can't coordinate another orange recipe to use the fruit and juice, you can save the peel from the oranges that you eat over the course of a week or two by storing them in a ziplock sandwich bag in the fridge.

Method:
Cut the ends off of the oranges, quarter them and remove the peel (pith intact) from the fruit. Slice the peel into ¼ inch strips.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and blanch the orange peels for 3 minutes, drain them and repeat the process two more times. This process removes some of the bitter flavor from the peel.

After blanching the peels, combine the sugar, water and corn syrup into a medium-sized sauce pot over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the orange peels and bring the solution to a simmer.

Allow the orange peels to simmer on low heat for 30-50 minutes until they are translucent. This is the step where I blew it on multiple occasions. Pay close attention that the liquid never comes to too hard of a boil. You should still be able to see the submerged peels and you don't want all of the water to evaporate.

When the peels have become translucent (and tasty), transfer them to a drying wrack on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Note: you can preserve the syrup in an air tight container and use it in marinades and drink mixes!

Place the peels in the refrigerator and allow them to cool overnight. Roll the peels in sugar and, again, allow them to dry in the refrigerator for a few hours.


Next, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler until it reaches a smooth consistency with a glossy shine. If you want to properly temper your chocolate in order to achieve a crisper bite and glossier coating, follow these handy directions from David Lebovitz. Dip the peels into the melted chocolate one-by-one, leaving the tips uncoated and place on the parchment. If you end up with leftover melted chocolate, dip some nuts, fruit or cookies into the remainder!

Place the candy back in the refrigerator to help the chocolate firm up faster (about 15 minutes). Enjoy!



P.S.
This recipe works great using other citrus peel as well:

Grapefruit Peel

Pomello Peel

Lemon Peel