Chocolate and Fresh Mint Cookies
The other day I did a post about some homemade thank you packages that I made. (By the way, thank you for your overwhelmingly positive feedback and encouragement!) Besides the fancy wrapping, the heart of that present was a stack of dark chocolate cookies with fresh garden mint baked right inside of them.
This is a really wonderful recipe to me, and in my mind I was saving it for something special- but then I realized- what is more special than sharing it with you guys? I feel so blessed to be able to share my thoughts, parties and recipes with you on a regular basis and absolutely love hearing about when you are able to use them in your own lives. So, please consider this recipe a thank you to all of you for coming and sharing with me here a couple times a week. It really means so much to me.
Speaking of you lovely readers…. This recipe was actually conceived last summer after a request from Lisa (Lisa are you still out there?!) asking for ideas on how to use up her overgrown mint. Suffering from the same problem 9 months out of the year, I really started using mint in a ton of dishes. (See examples of my mint frenzy such as: mint chocolate ice cream, kopanisti, potato salad, summer crostini.) That was when the idea of the cookies came along. Baking the leaves right into the cookie dough was something that I had never seen, tasted or heard of before, and boy was it good!
So pluck that fresh, fragrant mint and get baking,
Oh by the way, speaking of baking! please take notice of my new favorite baking item: my brand spanking new, shiny GLASS mixing bowl for my kitchen aid mixer! I did not even realize that this was an option until recently, and now I am in L-O-V-E. It feels huge! I also love that I can see when the bowl needs to be scraped down and the kids love that they can see what is going on in the bowl and whether or not they want to hang around and lick the bowl. How very convenient for them…
Chocolate and Fresh Mint Cookies, makes 2 dozen
-1 cup butter
-1 cup brown sugar
-1 cup white sugar
-2 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla
-2 cups flour
-¾ cup cocoa
-1 tsp baking sodas
-½ tsp salt
-2 cups chocolate chips
-2 cups chopped fresh mint
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 3 sheet pans with parchment or silpats.
2) In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream together the butter and both types of sugar.
3) When it is nice and creamy, add the vanilla and the eggs.
4) Beat together until fluffy.
5) In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients together.
6) Add the dry ingredients to the mixer and combine.
(I like to place a dishtowel over the mixer so the cocoa doesn’t fly everywhere!)
7) Roughly chop the mint leaves.
8) Add the chocolate chips and the mint to the cookie batter and mix until well combined.
9) Scoop the dough onto the prepared pans (8 cookies fit at a time.)
10) Bake the cookies at 350 for 12 minutes. Remove immediately and let cool on a rack.
I need to have that problem of the over grown mint! These cookies are a great idea. i love to use fresh mint with chocolate.
its easy Marla! Plant 1 tiny mint plant in your garden and sit back and watch it take over!
yeah, my mint hasn’t taken over anything…i think it has something to do with the fact that my house is the place where things go to die…
WHAT!? creepy Jen! what does that mean? just house plants I hope 🙂
I am in love with everything about these cookies! great recipe!
WOW – I could not read this post face enough! I can’t wait to try these!!!!! I have tons of mint and only use it in homemade lemonade. What better thing could there be on this sweet earth than a cookie made with chocolate AND mint?!!! Yum, yum. Thanks as always Heather!
What chocolate/cocoa did you use? Did regular cocoa and milk chocolate chips make the cookies that dark?
sorry Dave for late response!! I used Hershey’s dark cocoa (my favorite for dark chocolate color and taste) and semi-sweet chips, which look like milk next to that dark cocoa!
Ignore previous post!! In an effort to ease the problem of mint taking over the corner, I made these cookies today. Did nothing fancy. Semi-sweet choc chips and Hershey’s cocoa. Using a No. 60 scoop, I put 12 cookies on each Silpat. I did not press them down. Yield was 5 doz. (plus 2 practice cookies) 2 1/4 inch cookies. They are dark and chewy and the mint makes them very rich. Great recipe!! Thank you.
I’ve never baked with fresh mint! I bet these cookies have such great flavor!
What a wonderful post. Those cookies look just incredible. I so envy your mixing bowl. I want one for mine too!!!
I didn’t have 2 cups of mint, so I halved the recipe. They turned out great, not too strong on the mint. The chocolate turned out really dark, and the semi-sweet chocolate chips look like milk chocolate, just like you said. It really warms my chocolate-loving heart. Now that I think about it, I want to try these with something else. Maybe cardamom. Or freshly-grated cinnamon.
The mint is not real strong, but it is there and does add a richness. Of course, I used tall mint with big leaves. May have had more mint flavor with smaller, younger mint leaves. Next time.
These look amazing! I’ve got tons of mint, too, and like to use it whenever I can 🙂
I actually have some growing. This will be such fun to try.
Just took the cookies out of the oven and they are sooo good. Going to try them as ice cream sandwiches.
Heather,
Would you please share how you measure cocoa powder? I’ve tried a few recipes with them that came out way too strong (needing more sugar) and I am NOT one of those people who likes things sweet. I’m pretty sure it was the measurement. Does it need to be sifted?
Thanks, in advance.
The cookies look amazing!
Hi Danielle, I don’t usually sift my cocoa unless I am baking a cake, (even then I am pretty lazy about it!) If you feel like the cocoa is too overwhelming in a particular recipe, I would recommend cutting it by a third, (like in the cookies you could cut it to a 1/2 cup) and then add that 1/4 cup back in flour You may also want to consider using a cocoa powder that is lighter in flavor, as the dark varieties are certainly stronger! But don’t just add more sugar- that will often make baked good spread too much. I hope this helps some?!
Thanks!
I made your chocolate raspberry tart and the crust came out wrong. It was soooo bitter when I tasted the dough (and I actually LIKE things on the bitter side) I knew I couldn’t serve it. I tried to fix it by adding more powder sugar which made the whole thing dry and hard, of course. (I knew I should have added more butter as well, but was lazy) I used Ghiradelli dutch processed; maybe it is strong?
I’m looking forward to trying this recipe though. Thanks for the feedback.
DUTCH PROCESSED!!! That is the problem. Dutch Processed cocoa powder has a different chemical makeup! Try using good old Hershey’s Dark! or any non Dutch processed cocoa.
Thank You for this recipe! The cookies are wonderful. I adjusted slightly to use bakers chocolate squares and they came out soft and chewy (the way I like them).
These are delicious!!! I wonder if I can freeze some mint to make these over the winter?
I would certainly think so! Glad that you like them!
I cooked your Fresh Mint and Chocolate Cookies. Do they harden up as mine are very soft or are they supposed to be like that. Taste wonderful.
probably stay pretty soft from all of the cocoa powder- glad they taste good!
These are just plain amazing! I did only use 1/2 cup of cocoa, I think having a little less cocoa brought out the mintiness. Bravo!
Last night my fiance said he wanted mint chocolate chip cookies and I got curious! I can’t wait to try making these! 🙂 thank you for sharing!
they are so good Julia! enjoy!
These are delicious! I’ve been experimenting with mint recipes lately as I just planted mint this year, and I will definitely use this recipe again! I only used about a half cup of peppermint leaves with about 6 spearmint leaves instead of two full cups and they still tasted minty, the taste was just a bit more subtle (I made another dessert with fresh mint and the taste was a little strong, so I was being cautious with these cookies). Next time I think I’ll bump it up to a full cup.
what a great idea for using fresh mint – I was just asking a few blogging friends for ideas and someone of course said do a google search and yours was the first to pop up- I will link to your recipe/blog in tomorrows post so others can see how to use their mint – thanks for the idea.
can I use one of your photos of these cookies on my blog and link it back to you for the recipe – I will not post your recipe I wanted to link to it so my readers would go to you for the recipe
Thank you SO much for this recipe! It is absolutely amazingly delicious. My mom was super thrilled because we finally found a recipe to use all of the mint she is growing. Thank you for sharing.
Made these yesterday and they were great. I did not smoosh mine out–just let them flatten on their own. Took them out at 12 minutes, still a little gooey. Absolutely great cookies! I flash froze them and put them in a large zip lock with parchment paper in between layers to slow down our strong desire to unhinge our jaws and devour them. Excellent recipe! Now a family favorite. You can tell people it has a vegetable in there. Life could not be better.
These cookies are delicious! I used Almond flour instead of all purpose due to a gluten allergy in our family and they turned out great even with the substitution. They are very tender which maybe due to the almond flour I’m not sure. I also subbed out regular sugar for stevia and brown sugar for truvia so they are Keto friendly as well. I will def be making these again, my kiddos are going to love them and I have plenty of mint 🙂 Thanks for a new way to use my mint!
I made these today and they are super delicious. I used a mix of apple mint, chocolate mint and banana mint and white chocolate chip.
Made these today. So good! Fun to pick the fresh mint and have something to do with it!
Thank you Avery!
Followed the recipe almost exactly. Used mini semisweet chocolate chips, a little less sugar (like a few spoonfuls left – I just didn’t fill up the cup measurements all the way), and used mint leaves from my garden. These are DELICIOUS. So gooey and DARK chocolate, so minty, not overly sweet. A+, will make again.
I’ve been baking fresh mint butter cookies for years, and just today thought to look for a recipe for fresh mint chocolate cookies. Can’t wait to give it a try!