Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Deep rich chocolate cookie dough studded with mint and chocolate chips freezes beautifully so you are ready to bake up homemade chocolate chips by the time the oven preheats. These will disappear as fast as you can bake them.

You’d think I would know better.  I should know better!  Most of my adult life I’ve lived in places where I either needed to bring special items with me from the States or stock up quickly when I see them in the stores.  Reams of expat correspondence and countless conversations through the years have been devoted to where to buy what and, “Oh, my goodness, the soft toilet paper has come in at CV Central!” or “The advent calendars are here at Marks and Spencers!” and the like.

But I’ve gotten complacent living in Dubai.  I can buy most everything I need and it usually comes in great abundance.  Sometime too great.  I happen to know, because I have watched it with horrified interest, that the delivery of Borden’s Eggnog from the last Christmas season is still on the shelves at my local grocery store.  (The “best by” date is September 2013 but it’s covered by a sticker in Arabic.)  But I didn’t anticipate the run on Hershey’s Mint Truffles Kisses at all.  They appeared last week and I picked up a bag and fondled it but I didn’t buy because I didn’t have a plan.

Then I made a plan, for a mint chocolate make-ahead Christmas cookie that would be even more fabulous with a mint truffle Kiss on top. And now BOTH of my nearby grocery stores are out, fresh out, already. So I’ve left some plain (still fabulous) and topped some with peppermint Kisses and still others with dark chocolate Kisses. If you can find the mint truffle Kisses in the green bag, give them a try and send me a photo. I think they’d be beautiful. And if you are a fellow expat, don’t bother saying, “You should know better.” I do. I really do. Deep sigh.

This month our Creative Cookie Exchange group is baking up cookie dough that can be made ahead and frozen until you are ready to bake so make sure to scroll down to the bottom and check out the rest of the links.  We’ve got some great ones for you!

Ingredients for about 3 dozen cookies

These were a gift from my sister, brought from the States.

1 cup or 225g butter, at room temperature
1 cup, firmly packed, or 200g dark brown sugar
2 cups or 250g all-purpose flour
1/3 cup or just over 26g unsweetened cocoa powder (I used the special dark.)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 oz or 283g bag mixed dark chocolate chips and mint chips

Optional to decorate: A variety of Hershey’s Kisses

Method
If baking right away, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your baking pan by greasing it lightly or lining it with parchment paper.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine your flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

With electric beaters or in your stand mixer, cream together the butter and brown sugar, until they are light and fluffy.

Add in the flour mixture and beat until just combined.

Now add in the chocolate and mint chips and beat again briefly.

Roll the dough up into a thick sausage shape with cling film and chill for about 10 minutes in the freezer.  (Or for as long as several weeks if you aren’t baking immediately.  In this case, let the dough thaw for about 10 minutes before trying to cut your slices.  This also gives your oven time to preheat.)

It's not pretty but it is pretty delicious. 

Cut slices of the dough and lay them out on the prepared pan with enough space between them so they don’t run together as they bake.

This dough had been frozen for about 30 hours, then thawed for 10 minutes before slicing.

Once your oven has preheated, bake for 10-12 minutes or until just set.   Allow the cookies to cool on the pan for about 5-7 minutes before adding the Kisses or trying to remove them from the pan with a spatula.

Just out of the oven! 

If you’ve added Kisses, do not touch the candies until they have had a chance to harden up again.  The whole Kiss gets soft from the heat.  You can pop the cookies in the refrigerator if you are in a hurry.

With Kisses

Enjoy!

Unadorned but still delicious

To join in the fun of the Creative Cookie Exchange, just complete the steps below:

1.  Write a blog post with recipe and original photo. The theme this month is make-ahead freezer cookies for the holidays.  The post should describe how to freeze the dough and also how to bake the dough when you are ready. We would like the recipe to be one you’re making for the first time, and photos must be original.
2.  Post the Cookie Exchange badge somewhere on your blog so others can join in the fun:
Badge Code: should work for all types of web sites, blogger, self-hosted and free.

<center> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Creative-Cookie-Exchange-hosted-by-The-Spiced-Life-and-At-Home-with-Rebecka/148873331987243" target="_blank"><img alt="Creative Cookie Exchange" src="http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy124/BiteMySweetTarts/3329aec3-6749-4ab7-8af953332dfb9487_zps437070c3.jpg"/></a></center>

3.  Make a good faith effort to visit and comment on the other cookies in the Linky party.  We all love cookies so that should be easy!

4.  LIKE the Creative Cookie Exchange Facebook Page

5.  FOLLOW the Creative Cookie Exchange Pinterest Board

6.  LINK your blog post below using the Linky tool.

You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes.  Be sure to check out our Facebook page, our Pinterest Board, and our monthly posts. You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!  

Here are this month’s great make-ahead recipes:

• Best Ever Sugar Cookies from Liv Life
• Chai Spice Girls from All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
• Cherry Pistachio Ice Box Cookies from Noshing With The Nolands
• Chewy Pumpkin Ginger Cookies from If I Ever Owned A Bakery
• Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies from Food Lust People Love
• Chocolate Mint Cookies from At Home with Rebecka 
• Christmas Linzer Cookies from It’s Yummi!
• Coffee? Tea? from Ninja Baking
• Espresso Pinwheel Cookies from A Baker’s House
• Neapolitan Striped Crisps from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Pumpkin Cranberry Cookie Drops from KarenTrina Childress
• Salted Dark Chocolate Crisps from The Spiced Life
• Scottish Shortbread from Made With Love

Brown Sugar Browned Butter Maple Muffins

Browned butter and brown sugar add a depth and richness to these maple syrup muffins that make them perfect for a Sunday morning brunch or midmorning snack. 

Here’s a confession guaranteed to get me disowned by any Canadians that may have once loved me:  At our house, we use Aunt Jemima Butter Lite syrup on waffles and pancakes and French toast.  In fact, on anything that would normally require maple syrup.  Truth is, I’ve never done a side-by-side taste comparison with the real thing because we love our Aunt Jemima.  It's one of things I've hauled in great quantities to the various countries we've lived over the last 26 years. It tastes like home.  It’s sweet but not too sweet, and that added butter flavor (Yeah, I know it doesn’t have real butter and the flavoring will probably be found to cause horrible cell mutations someday but for now, we are blissful in our ignorance.) makes adding butter optional.  If anyone wants to give me a bottle of the real stuff, I promise to keep an open mind and perform a blindfolded taste test.  But just know that until then, when I say “maple,” I really mean Aunt Jemima Butter Lite.  Feel free to substitute your favorite syrup.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup, packed, or 100g dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1/3 cup browned butter, at room temperature (Start with 7 tablespoons or 100g of butter and follow these easy instructions.)
3/4 cup or 180ml maple syrup
1 large egg

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it thoroughly or spraying with non-stick spray or lining it with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt and stir well.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk, browned butter, syrup and egg.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Bake in the preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for a few minutes and then remove the muffins to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street, a culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop her a quick line to join her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

Plus learn all you ever need to know about muffins at Muffin 101.

Roasted Butternut Squash with Balsamic Vinegar Honey Butter

Lots of recipes call for butternut squash to be peeled before roasting but I have found that the peel is actually quite tender and deliciously edible so I like to leave it on.  It adds fiber as well as flavor. 

After the indulgent recipes of Cookie Week, I am delighted to tell you that I’ve got an easy, healthy dish for you.  #SundaySupper is celebrating winter squash so I made one of our family favorites.  I’ve been roasting pumpkin and butternut squash for several years now, sometimes just drizzled with olive oil and a pinch of sea salt, and sometimes fancied up with spices (Cumin and/or cinnamon work beautifully!) or sprinkled with minced garlic with a pat of butter in the hole.  No matter the additions, it is always delicious.  And nutritious.  I hope you give it a try!

Ingredients to serve four
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon honey
2 small butternut squash (About 15 1/2oz or 440g each)
Sprinkle of sea salt flakes
Green onion tops for garnish, if desired

Method
Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the vinegar, olive oil and honey with your two tablespoons of butter.  Melt your butter with a quick couple of zaps of perhaps 10 seconds each in the microwave and stir well to combine.

Cut the stem off of your butternut squash and then cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds.

Put your four halves in a baking pan and drizzle the vinegar honey butter mixture all over the squash.  Divide the remaining mixture between the wells in the squash.

Roast in the preheated oven until a fork goes in the thickest part quite easily.  This should take between 45 and 60 minutes.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle each butternut squash half with sea salt flakes.  Garnish with green onion tops, if desired.

Enjoy!