Last year, I made these hot chocolate cookies that were very delicious. But I had some ideas for how to re-work the recipe a fair amount. They probably could have used a re-do entirely, to get the ratios correct. But with all the other baking I was doing, I didn’t want to make even more cookies in a re-do. And they were plenty tasty as is. But this year, I wanted to make them again, with the changes I had thought up. And… this year I have some spare Andes mints, so I figured I’d make them mint chocolate. Because why not??
I think I worked out the kinks with this round of them. They didn’t spread out as much, and they have a better texture and consistency.
The peppermint is also a great addition. Both from the Andes mints and just some peppermint extract in the dough. It really comes through, even with the chocolate. But if you want to leave out the extract and sub in Hershey’s for the Andes mints, these would still be delicious.
I’m on a small peppermint chocolate kick at the moment. I splurged for some peppermint mocha creamer at the store the other day, so I’ve been enjoying some tasty coffees and mid-afternoon treats. A tasty way to get into the holiday spirit.
Making these feels like you’re putting in a comical amount of mix-ins. Almost like they won’t all fit in the dough. An entire container of mini marshmallows, a whole sleeve of Andes, and then a whole recipe of chocolate crumb. But somehow the ratios work! And they all manage to be held together by the dough. These are just loaded cookies. But that’s the ideal cookie, in my opinion!
I recently passed my running goal for this year – 1100 miles! Which is, conveniently, double what I run last year (550 miles). And the year before that, I only ran 134 miles. This is a humble brag, but also I bring it up because I made a joke on my running app about this being some great “Year over year improvement.”
And now these cookies are a year-over-year improvement! The kind of year over year improvement I care about. Not that corporate nonsense.
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PinIngredients
Hot Chocolate Crumb
- 1/4 cup hot chocolate mix
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp. cornstarch
- 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
- 2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
Chocolate Cookies
- 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup glucose
- 1 egg
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2oz milk chocolate, melted
- 1 1/4 cups flour
- 1/4 cup hot chocolate mix
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- ¾ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- 1¾ tsp kosher/sea salt
- 1 recipe hot chocolate crumb
- 4.6 oz Andes mints, chopped into chunks
- 3oz jet puffed marshmallow bits
Instructions
Prepare the Hot Chocolate Crumb:
- Heat the oven to 250°. In a medium bowl, whisk 1⁄2 cup of the hot chocolate mix with the flour, cornstarch, and salt. Add the butter and stir with spatula until the mixture forms small clusters. Spread the clusters onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake until dried and sandy, 20 minutes. Transfer the clusters to a rack and let cool completely. When cooled, break apart any chunks that are larger than 1⁄2 inch in diameter.
Prepare the cookies:
- Combine the butter, sugar, and glucose in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg, vanilla, and melted chocolate, and beat for 7 to 8 minutes.
- Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, hot chocolate mix, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix just until the dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute. (Do not walk away from the machine during this step, or you will risk overmixing the dough.) Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
- Still on low speed, add the hot chocolate crumbs, Andes mints, and marshmallows and mix just until incorporated, about 30 seconds.
- Using a 1.4oz ice cream scoop (or a 2.5 tablespoons), portion out the dough onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Pat the tops of the cookie dough domes flat. Wrap the sheet pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 week. Do not bake your cookies from room temperature–they will not bake properly.
- Heat the oven to 350°F.
- Arrange the chilled dough a minimum of 4 inches apart on parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pans. Bake for 14 minutes. The cookies will puff, crackle, and spread. It’s tough (kind of impossible) to gauge if a cookie that is this dark with chocolate is done. If after 14 minutes, the cookies still seem doughy in the center, give them another 1 minute in the oven, but not more.
- Cool the cookies completely on the sheet pans before transferring to a plate or an airtight container for storage. At room temp, the cookies will keep fresh for 5 days; in the freezer, they will keep for 1 month.