Espresso Thin Mint Cookies

I was walking out of the Exchange the other day and the Girl Scouts were selling Girl Scout cookies.  I was sure not to make eye contact because I have very little self control when it comes to those things and once I buy them, end up devouring a whole box in no more than 2 days.  My favorite are their Thin Mints.  Well I looked down at the Starbucks Caramel Macchiatto in my hand and thought, if those girls had a thin mint cookie with espresso in them, there would be no way I could say no.

Then it hit me.  Uhm, hello dummy, you have a friggin' food blog!  Why don't you bake some yourself?  I got all excited and had to tell someone.  I texted my best friend, Z, who called me a "Kitchen Mad Scientist" as well as another close friend, Matt, who said that the reason they don't sell them with espresso in them is because little girls shouldn't be pushing those kinds of things.  Since I'm sure they already put crack in them (not slander, I'm saying that because I can't stop eating them) I thought, hell, what's a little caffeine?  I also happened to have been a Girl Scout myself at one time so I figured I was qualified to experiment with such things.

Cookies
Ingredients:
1/3 c. butter
3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate (If you have cocoa powder you can also use that - I just happened to run out. If you do, you will want to use 1/2 c. butter instead)
1/4 c. espresso powder (I grind my own beans but you can use just some strong, ground coffee instead)
1 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. mint extract

First thing you should do is chop up the baking chocolate finely.  (If you don't chop it up enough, you will have a hard time melting it down for the cookies.)  Melt the chocolate and the butter in the microwave for approximately 30 seconds - 1 minute until smooth.  Stir frequently to avoid burning the chocolate.

Pour melted chocolate and butter into a large bowl and add sugar and espresso grounds and stir until blended completely.

Add in egg and mint extract.  Mix well.

Gradually add flour to batter. Batter should be a lot dryer than a regular cookie and should look crumbly.  Form batter into balls. (I used a teaspoon-sized scooper and packed the batter into the scooper tightly.)

Flatten cookies until they are nice and thin. (I did these by hand.  Tedious, yes, but sometimes a little extra love goes a long way.  In this case, it went 2 dozen cookies long.)



Bake at 350 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes.  Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly, then move to a rack to cool completely.



Chocolate Coating
Ingredients:
5 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate
1/4 c. butter
A handful of Andes Mints baking chocolate (optional, I just had them on hand and thought, "What the hell?")

Melt everything in a microwave-safe bowl for about a minute.  Stir until smooth.  Dip cookies in chocolate and lay on parchment paper to cool.  Move cookies to freezer to allow for complete cooling and hardening of chocolate.




If espresso is not for you, you can try these without the coffee in them, of course.  Also, I will not say these taste exactly like the Girl Scout cookies.  I have had many a Thin Mint and these weren't as crunch as the original.  My fix for that would be to make them thinner than I did and maybe cook them a couple extra minutes.  These are yummy though and I'm satisfied enough to share them with you.  I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!  Let me know how it went. :)