Saturday, December 5, 2009

Chocolate Mint Snowflake Cookies


If you know me, then you'll find it hard to believe that I have never been to a cookie exchange before this year. I'm not sure how this is possible, but it's true. So, when the invite came for a cookie exchange at a good friend and neighbor's house this year, I agonized over what to make. My favorite holiday cookies to make are usually ornately decorated sugar cookies with an assortment of brightly piped royal icing colors. But I wanted the actual cookie to be more unique since this was meant to be a fun exploration of everyone's recipes.

Eventually I settled upon 3 factors in my cookie making pursuit: I wanted to do a chocolate cookie since they are not as common as butter or sugar cookies, a pairing of mint would somehow be nice, and a sandwich style cookie would be different (hopefully) than the norm. Regardless of what I made, I knew the decoration would be my favorite part, so piping something was a given. I stumbled upon a nice, chocolate sandwich cookie recipe from Martha Stewart and I had my base (http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/chocolate-sandwiches). The main tweaks were adding peppermint extract to the white chocolate creme filling and using small snowflake cookie cutters instead of just cutting into squares. Also, I did pipe snowflake patterns on with royal icing (peppermint flavored as well) instead of drizzling with white chocolate.

The results were wonderful! These little snowflakes were just the right size for a party where you're eating lots of cookies. The chocolate mint pairing was delicious and I'm trying not to eat anymore as I type this blog entry.