Andes Crème de Menthe Chunk Cookies

It seems like we can only find Andes Crème de Menthe around Christmas time and we never fail to pick up several boxes!!  This past winter, I stumbled upon Andes Crème de Menthe Baking Chips and quickly grabbed a bag.  They’ve since been sitting in my pantry stacked with my other baking chips just waiting for the day I finally got around to using them.  Well – I finally have!

I pulled the recipe right off the back of the packaging (available online here), figuring best to try their approach and deviate from there (my usual M.O. when baking anything for the first time).  The directions were really simple:

Combine the butter, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla and eggs in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and combine.  The final result worked out fine; however, next time making these, I will cream my butter and sugar before adding any of the other ingredients. 

Next step is to fold in the mint chunks.

Followed by the flour, making sure not to over  mix.  At this point, the dough needs to be chilled for an hour.

I do have some perfectionist tendencies, exhibited by my whipping out a scale to measure out 1 oz. balls of dough. 

I lined my baking sheet with a Silpat and slightly flattened my cookie balls as the recipe recommended.  I would recommend flattening more than slightly, by quite a bit, as this dough does not spread much during cooking.  Up to you whether you prefer thinner or thicker cookies. Since mine ended up being quite thick, I cooked them for the full 10 minutes.  

Subsequent thinner batches went in for 8 minutes.

After leaving them on the baking sheet a couple of minutes, I transferred them to a cooling rack.  At this point, I just had to try one and to my surprise they were refreshing!  I know, how can a cookie be refreshing?!  But the mint in these really does come through as a refreshing treat.

They make a nice gift as well!

Next time I try these, I plan on including ½ tsp. of flaky sea salt ;)

Enjoy!

P.S. Apologies for some of the blurry photos.  I recently purchased a new camera and I'm still learning about and testing out all the various features.   

Andes Crème de Menthe Chunk Cookies

Yields 4 dozen

Ingredients

• ½ cup salted butter – softened (I used unsalted)
• ¾ cup dark brown sugar (I used Demerara)
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 package (10 oz.) Andes Crème de Menthe Baking Chips
• 2 2/3 cups flour – sifted

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350˚.
2. Cream together the butter and sugars.  Beat in the eggs, vanilla, baking soda and baking powder until combined.
3. Stir in the Andes Crème de Menthe Baking Chips.  Then fold in the flour until just combined.
4. Chill the dough for an hour, before measuring out and rolling 1 oz. balls.  Place on a baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper and flatten to desired thickness.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.
5. Cool on pan for 2 minutes before serving or set on a cooling rack to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.