Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cookies
Peppermint: it’s one of the best holiday flavors. Outside of the chilly months of the winter, I don’t often find myself craving it, but here is something about the cold weather that brings back my love for a classic candy cane. Is there anything cozier for the winter than curling up on the couch with a warm cookie and a cup of hot chocolate, covered in whipped cream, dusted with peppermint and chocolate drizzle? Or seeing the glow of the Christmas lights and decorations all around and having the cool, minty snap of a candy cane? Call it nostalgia, call it a holiday guilty pleasure…I call it delicious, any way it’s served.
When I think of peppermint, my mind immediately goes to the candy cane. And we all know my mind is thinking about cookies 24/7, so I thought – why not marry the two together? This cookie is like if you transported ALL the best flavors that cup of hot chocolate and Christmas morning into a cookie and it may be the most underrated holiday cookie of all time. There, I said it – sue me.
Now, we know we CANNOT just use regular old chocolate chip cookies and smack some melting chocolate and peppermint on there and call it good. We are better than that…just accept that we are elevating our cookie game. I deserve it, I know you deserve it, your guests deserve it. Sorry, Tollhouse. Sorry, Pillsbury – there’s a new cookie in town and we aren’t going to apologize for it. That’s right, we are going to start this recipe with a frozen, ready to bake, Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk cookie and that already will take this holiday offering to the next level. Top that baby with some Maldon Flakey Sea salt, tempered dark chocolate, and crushed candy canes and you are ready for salted chocolate chip cookie perfection.
If you’re looking to impress your guests this holiday season – bake these up. They aren’t your traditional cookies, that is for sure, but traditional is boring. If anything, the cookies will spark some inspiration in your own kitchen to start exploring new flavors and cookies, and if that is the only thing you take from this, then I am a happy gal. Once I started to venture out of the ordinary is when my world of baking opened up to a place I could have never imagined. Break things, try new recipes, try new flavors. Some will bake terribly, others won’t work, of course most will be good, and there will be that ONE cookie that you create, without a recipe, only pure imagination and creativity and THAT is where cookie magic happens.
RECIPE:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees
- Place desired amount of BAKR cookies on a baking tray and bake for 16 minutes (or until edges turn GBD – golden brown delicious)
- Once the chocolate chip cookies are out of the oven, immediately salt with Maldon Flakey Sea Salt (because we know salted cookies = more flavor)!
- While the cookies are cooling, we can start tempering chocolate.
- Melt ⅔ of the total chocolate that you need over a double boiler until it reaches 115ºF (yes, break out that thermometer - it is essential for nice snappy and properly tempered chocolate!), stirring constantly to avoid hot spots. We used 2 bars for 8 cookies
- Remove chocolate from the heat. Add ½ of your remaining un-melted chocolate back into the bowl. Stir to melt and continue stirring until the chocolate reaches 100ºF
- Add in the last of your unmelted chocolate and stir it into your warm chocolate. 95ºF is were the crystals in the cocoa butter start blooming so adding tempered chocolate in right before you reach this temperature ensures the proper crystals will grow and temper the rest of the untempered chocolate.
- Remove the cookies from the baking tray and fold them into the chocolate mixture – we did some fully coated and others half dipped. Both look and taste incredible, so go with what you feel is right
Happy Baking
Lex 