Homemade Thin Mint Cookies

Well, it's that time of the year with Girl Scouts selling their cookies.  Either stock up to enjoy them for the rest of the year, or try these cookies to make in your own kitchen when your stock runs low.  The results are remarkable!  It's a nice recipe to impress others with, that you actually made Thin Mints!  I will either have to make another batch or stop eating them before my boys get home from school!  (I'm sure they would like another baggie of these cookies in their lunches tomorrow!)  The recipe is adapted from Bev Loves Food.

This recipe does have a box cake mix in it.  I am still on the look-out for a "make your own" recipe for the Devil's Food cake mix to save more money.   Meanwhile, here is the recipe...

Ingredients:

1 box Devil's Food cake mix

2 eggs

4 tbs water

4 tbs veg oil

1/2 cup cocoa powder

Chocolate Coating

6 squares of chocolate candy quick coat or chocolate almond bark 

1/4 tsp peppermint extract

Directions:

Mix the cake mix together with the eggs, water, oil, and cocoa powder.  It should be a little moist, able to hold a shape.  Then, let sit for about 20 minutes.  

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Drop the dough onto the paper, that is about the size of a quarter.  If it's a little larger, that's okay, just adjust the cooking time by a minute. 

Coat the back of a spatula with vegetable oil, and smash the dough-ball as thin as you can get it.  You may have to carefully peel off the dough off the back of the spatula and place on the parchment paper.  (The thinner, the better.)

Bake in oven for about 4 minutes.  Remove and flatten each cookie again, to ensure a crispy thin cookie.  Bake for about 2-3 more minutes.  Careful to not over-bake.  Remove from cookie sheet and let cool.   These remind me of bagel chips, only chocolate.

For the chocolate coating, I like to melt the chocolate in a Rubbermaid plastic container to reuse later, as the chocolate flakes or peels off, unlike using a glass bowl.  Carefully, melt in the chocolate in 30-second increments (without burning the chocolate), stirring after each segment in the microwave.  Then, stir in the peppermint extract.   Reheat the chocolate as needed, as it dries quickly.  Also, make more as needed to coat the cookies.  

Coat the cookies in the chocolate mint coating and shake off excess with the cookie on a fork.  Let dry on wax paper.  

These were a little bigger than I would've liked, but they are good!  Enjoy!