Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Part serendipitous accident, part designer cookie. I was cooking at a friends house and asked for vanilla extract. By accident, she gave me peppermint extract, and the rest is history.

Ingredients

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 cup butter or margarine*
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 dash of salt (approx 1/4 tsp)
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup of cocoa powder
• 2 cups flour
• 1 bag chocolate chips (semi-sweet or milk chocolate depending on your mood)

Directions:

1. Mix butter or margarine with the sugar until thoroughlt blended and smooth. For best results, do it by hand, not with a handmixer (we’re old fashioned here). If the margarine is too hard, you can soften in the microwave, but be careful that you do not melt it, becuase if you do, then your dough will be oily on the surface, but not stick together right, and your cookies will not have the right consistency.
2. Mix in the eggs until smooth.
3. Add in the vanilla and peppermint extract. I just free pour these until I feel good about it. Mix
4. Add salt and baking soda and mix. (The salt is really optional, but I think it makes them better.)
5. Add cocoa powder, more or less depending on your mood. Mix (slowly at first to avoid wearing the cocoa powder).
6. Add flour one cup at a time and mix between cups, again starting slowly.
7. When dough is consistent and all traces of flour gone, then add in the chips.

Baking:

1. Using a spoon, drop a certain amoung of dough (depending on desire cookie size) onto a nongrease baking sheet.
2. Bake at 325-375 for about 8-10 minutes. Start with 350 and experiment because your oven will be different than mine.
3. Be very careful with the first batch, becuase the cookies are already brown, it’s easy to burn them without realizing it.
4. Undercooked is preferable to overcooked

Congratulations. You have just made Pat’s very own Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. These cookies are not to-die-for; they are to-kill-for.

*Note: Butter will give you a slightly richer tasting, but crunchier cookie. Margarine will give you a softer cookie. I much prefer the margarine cookies over butter.