Thin Mints

I actually didn't start out trying to make homemade Thin Mints, but was really on a borderline obsessive quest for the perfect egg-free and dairy-free chocolate wafer cookie to decorate a cake I want to try later this month. My quest took me through many recipes...Martha, King Arthur, Thomas Keller, Heidi Swanson, Alice Medrich...and finally, in desperation, after a pile of failed trials, I just gave up and tried my own recipe...and doggone if it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

The problem I kept running into with all those recipes was that without the eggs and butter...the cookies were greasy cocoa-flavored tooth-breakers, not the crisp-tender cookie I was looking for. The final solution was in the type of sugar and flour. After all those failures, I was out of all-purpose flour and granulated sugar, but I did have just enough cake flour and powdered sugar left to try one last batch. And they are perfect. I don't know what took me so long. This makes quite a few, they freeze really well, but feel free to cut the recipe in half.

Egg-Free and Dairy-Free Thin Mint Cookies

Makes about 100 1-inch cookies

1 1/2 cups cake flour (I used Swan's Down, be careful...Pillsbury Softasilk has egg and dairy.)3/4 cup cocoa powder ( I used Nestle)
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 sticks (14T) dairy-free margarine, room temp ( I used Fleischmann's Unsalted Margarine)

2 cups of safe chocolate chips for dipping ( I used Divvies)
2 T. shortening
Peppermint extract to taste

1.) I found these to be pretty fussy as far as measuring goes. For the flour, cocoa and powdered sugar, I first fluffed up the item to be measured with a spoon or my measuring cup and then scooped with the measuring cup and leveled off with a knife.
2.) Place everything except the margarine into a food processor and pulse a few times to mix.
3.) Slice the margarine into the food processor bowl.
4.) Pulse about 8-10 times until the margarine is well blended, the mixture is still crumbly and hasn't come together into a ball yet.
5.) Dump the crumbly mixture onto a piece of plastic wrap and form into a flat disk.
6.) Refrigerate for at least an hour.
7.) Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into 1 inch rounds or hearts. I have a really cool set of nesting fluted round cutters that I got from Amazon, which I use all the time, the smallest size is perfect.
8.) Place the cookies on a parchment or Silpat-lined baking sheet and place in the freezer.
9.) Preheat the oven to 350 while the cookies freeze.
10.) Bake for 10-12 minutes. They should puff up, then flatten out. When they start smelling good, they're probably ready.
11.) Let them rest on the baking sheet for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack, they're pretty fragile when hot.
12.) When cool, you can dip them! Melt the chocolate chips and the shortening in a microwave, 30 seconds at a time, stirring well until they are completely melted. Mix in the peppermint extract. I used about 1/4 teaspoon per cup of chocolate chips, you may want to use more or less. Dip the cookies quickly and place on a Silpat or waxed paper. Make sure to tilt and shake the cookies so the chocolate coat is thin and not really overwhelmingly thick. Once you're done, put all the cookies in the freezer. Once the chocolate is dry, you can transfer all the cookies to a freezer-safe container for safe-keeping! Enjoy!