I wouldn’t call myself a coffee drinker but this cold weather has me running to Starbucks pretty regularly these days. On a recent trip to the world’s most famous coffee chain I discovered their Peppermint Mocha and I have to say, it is one dangerous drink! There is just something about the marriage of chocolate and mint that is magical. And thanks to Starbucks, I can’t get the flavor combination out of my head.
But instead of indulging myself in a 300 calorie drink every afternoon, I decided to recreate my new favorite beverage into a cookie. Cause when it comes to calories, cookies don’t count…right?
No, but seriously…I have had cookies on my mind lately, because I participated in the Great Food Blogger’s Cookie Swap this year (thanks to a suggestion by my sister-in-law). So my task was to send out a dozen cookies to three food bloggers, secret-santa style. In return, three different food bloggers sent me a dozen of their cookies. The result? Pure deliciousness…and a whole lot of cookies :)
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 Ghirardelli Milk Peppermint Bark Bars, chopped
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Using a fine mesh strainer, sift cocoa right over the bowl with the flour mixture. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until well combined. Slowly add flour mixture until just combined. Fold in 2 cups of the peppermint bark.
Using a medium cookie scoop, drop onto prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle each cookie with remaining peppermint bark.
Bake for 9-11 minutes. Cookies will be soft in the middle. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Recipe slightly adapted from Barbara Bakes
The original recipe calls for a combination of white chocolate chips and Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips. Unfortunately, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t find the Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips anywhere! So I had to improvise a little. But I LOVE how the cookies turned out. The addition of the milk chocolate in the peppermint bark delivers even more chocolately goodness to these already ooey-gooey cookies. And let’s be honest, there is no such thing as too much chocolate :)
This cookie is the perfect holiday treat. For starters, the peppermint bark makes this an obvious festive choice for homemade gifts for friends, co-workers and neighbors. But another bonus is that the recipe yields 3 dozen! Which means, there is more than enough cookies to go around whether you are sharing them at home, at a party or a food blogger cookie swap. Or, if you really want to score this Christmas, whip up a batch for Santa and his reindeer. These cookies are guaranteed to seal the deal on your holiday wish list.
Digging that awesomly orange spatula? It’s the “Good Cookie” Spatula from OXO and it was a free gift for my donation to Cookies for Cancer through the Cookie Swap. Pick up one for yourself, your friends and family members and help raise funds for pediatric cancer research.
