Chocolate Mint Cookies

I know I've been bad about blogging lately, but holidays just eat up time. We spent a wonderful and much needed 10 days in Vermont visiting my family for Christmas and New Years but it is nice to be back home now. A week or so before we left I decided I really wanted to make cookies, but I wasn't sure what we really had on hand or what kind I wanted to make so I pulled out my Cooking Light Complete Cookbook and found a really easy recipe for Chocolate-Mint Cookies, which taste just like soft thin mints.

Now, I'm not sure if it was just the recipe or if I did something off but my dough seemed really sticky, not only when I was rolling it into a log but even when I took them out of the freezer they weren't as solid as I expected and was tricky to cut. They still came out delicious although perhaps not the prettiest cookies.

Chocolate-Mint Cookies
Cooking Light Complete Cookbook

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3 tablespoons applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon peppermint extract
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
Cooking spray

Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, cocoa, and baking soda in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk.

Combine brown sugar and next 5 ingredients in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at high speed 2 minutes. Beat in egg white. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed until well blended.

Coat hands lightly with cooking spray. Shape dough into a 6-inch log. Wrap log in plastic wrap; freeze 1 hour or until firm.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Cut log into 24 (¼-inch) slices, and place 1 inch apart on baking sheets lightly coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool on wire racks.

They were wonderful soft and chewy thin mints and they didn't stick around for long, but there are a couple things I think I'd do differently next time. First of all, I think I will dust off our stand mixer and see if using that won't billow flour and cocoa all over the kitchen the way my hand mixer did, and second I will either freeze them for longer, or I'll just make them as drop cookies instead of slicing them. I suppose it depends on how adventurous I'm feeling.