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.