And who doesn't love them?
Ok, so my son, S, doesn't. Who else doesn't?
And since they go with the Christmas box theme I have going this year, I went looking for a recipe, and found this one that looked easy and potentially promising. And I made them on Sunday.
Speaking of the Christmas boxes, have you picked up the theme yet?
Peppermint Meringues.
Cool Mint Oreo Balls.
Thin Mints.
I know it's hard, but you can do it. Think hard. Think real hard now....Yes! That's right! You got it!
An Exploration of Mint. I haven't come up with the cheesy...er...minty poem for it yet, but hopefully I will get that before next Wed, the 18th, when I plan to give them out. But each box will have just a little tasting of mint treats.
And no, I'm not giving a box to my son. I wouldn't waste...er...I mean...force a box on him. That just wouldn't be loving, right? Unless you think of it as loving to tease someone, in which case, I should give him about 10 boxes, right? Oh, the dilemmas of life we mothers face...
Here are the pics from making us some thin mints...
Simple ingredients - and this is a double recipe - fudge cake mix, egg, melted shortening, and water (not pictured). I added a touch of mint extract to the dough, not called for in the recipe I found. And the dough is in the foreground. All went together beautifully in the Kitchen Aid.
Divided into fourths and "weighed" them in my hands to check for an even split. I don't have a kitchen scale, but maybe Santa will bring me one this year...
And then you start rolling like you're rolling a fat snake from play dough. And if you're like me, there will be a weak spot in your snake just about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down. I never said that I made A's in play dough in kindergarten. I didn't want my snake - er, cookie - too big, so I rolled to about 1-1/4" around.
Twist off the ends and place them in the fridge and then go Christmas shopping and grocery shopping for a while. And while you're at lunch, debate about how many these 4 rolls will yield. 75? 150? 120?
When you get back home and you've put away the gifts and groceries you bought, start slicing about as thinly as you can and lay them out on the parchment lined cookie sheet that you used to dry your peppermint meringues. It is very important that you reuse the same parchment piece that you used for your peppermint meringues. If you don't have that piece of parchment, then you just have to give up and make thin mints another day. Sorry.
As for the yield question, this is about 1-1/2 rolls, and it's 84 cookies, so we got somewhere around 225 cookies from the 4 rolls. So much for winning the debate.
Set the cookies in the freezer for about 20 minutes before dipping. It makes the dipping easier.
Melt your almond bark with some semi-sweet chocolate chips or melting chips and start dipping. I like to use a cocktail fork so that the fork itself doesn't add more chocolate. Let your first two dry and do a taste test. Decide that there is too much chocolate on each one, so in addition to dipping, you are now letting them drip longer before setting them on the waxed paper.
Can you see that little pile of chocolate that dripped off of this one? Sing Jingle Bells or Away in a Manger while you let each one drip. I got about 30 of them dipped because I want the coating of chocolate to be as thin as possible.
Therefore I don't have a finished picture, because I am reasonably confident that I will have all of these fully dipped and dripped and dried by July 4th. Anyone heard of Christmas in July?
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