Description
These gluten free thin mints are a copycat recipe of the Girl Scouts thin mints – they taste even better than the original. They are a light, crunchy dark chocolate cookie that’s laced with cooling peppermint, and coated in a fudge-y chocolate. They’re so good!
Ingredients
Thin Mints Dough
- 1 cup blanched almond flour
- 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon tapioca flour/starch
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons coconut flour
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (plus a little extra for dusting)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 4 ounces unsalted butter, (1/2 cup), room temp
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg white (measure out 1 tablespoon), room temp
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
Chocolate Coating
- 12 ounces bittersweet chocolate – 60% cocoa – (I recommend using a high quality baking chocolate bar for the best results)
- 2 1/4 teaspoons coconut oil
- 1 tablespoon + 3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (can reduce to 2 1/2 teaspoons if you prefer a less strong peppermint taste)
Instructions
- Bring butter to room temp – at least 2 hours before you’re ready to bake, allow the 4 ounces of butter to sit at room temp so that it is softened. At this time, also seperate your 1 egg whtie, measure out 1 tablespoon of it, and place it in a small bowl, covered, to come to room temp as well.
- Mix together the dry ingredients – Once your butter has come to room temp, add the almond flour, tapioca flour/starch, coconut flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder to a small mixing bowl. Whisk to combine.
- Cream the butter and sugar – To a large mixing bowl, add the butter, and kosher salt. Use a hand mixer to cream the butter just enough to break it up. Then add the granulated sugar. Cream together for 5 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. The butter should have lightened in color, and become nice and fluffy.
- Add the egg white and extracts – To the butter, add the egg white and use the hand mixer to mix it into the butter, until well incorporated. Then add the peppermint extract, and vanilla extract, and mix until those are well combined into the butter.
- Add the dry ingredients – Add 1/3 of dry ingredient mixture to the creamed butter – use the hand mixer to slowly mix it into the butter. Once it’s all combined, add another 1/3 of the flour mixture, mix again, and then add the last portion of the flour mixture and mix again. At this point, use your clean hands to kneed the dough a few times to ensure it’s fully mixed – the dough should be quite thick, not too sticky, and come together nicely.
- Chill the dough – Remove the dough and place it on a large sheet of plastic wrap. use your hands to flatten out the ball into an even disc. Wrap the plastic wrap up tightly. Place the dough in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes (or fridge, for 40 to 60 minutes), or until the dough is firm, but not fully frozen/solid.
- Prepare pans & preheat oven – While the dough is chilling you can line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside. Arrange your oven racks so that one rack is in the middle. Also, preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Roll out the cookie dough – You can use a little bit of cocoa powder to prevent sticking, but you don’t want to use a lot, I find a pastry mat, and parchment paper to be really helpful here. Very lightly dust the surface of your pastry mat with a little cocoa powder. Transfer the chilled dough to the pastry mat, place a piece of parchment paper on top and use a rolling pin to roll the dough into about a 1/4 inch thickness. Make sure to lift the parchment paper up frequently to make sure you’re rolling out the dough evenly.
- Cut out the cookies – Dip a 1.9 to 2 inch circle cookie cutter in cocoa powder, use it to cut as many circles into the rolled out dough as you can. I try to avoid the very edge of the dough because it often is more un-even. Dust a small offset spatula in cocoa powder and use it to remove the excess dough near the circles – setting aside the excess dough, then dust the offset spatula again, and use it to carefully get underneath the cut out cookie, and lift it up to transfer it to the parchment lined baking sheet. NOTE: the dough is a little delicate, so make sure to dust the offset spatula with cocoa powder between each use to prevent sticking. Repeat until you have transferred all of the circles to the baking sheet. The cookies won’t spread, so you can have them close together, but place the cookies 1 inch apart for air circulation.
- Repeat with the remaining cookie dough – Use your hands to form the cookie dough scraps into a ball, dust your pastry mat with a little cocoa powder, flatten out into a disk, and repeat the same method as above for rolling the dough out into a 1/4 inch thickness. Then, use the same method for cutting out the cookies. Repeat rolling out the dough until you have cut out as many cookies as possible (I rolled it out 3 to 4 times), you should have 37 to 40 cookies total. NOTE: I didn’t find a need to chill the dough between each time I rolled it out, but if you are having some major trouble with sticking, or the cut out cookies falling apart, then you can chill the dough for 10 mins in the freezer.
- Poke holes in the cookies – Once you have cut out all of the cookies, use a toothpick to poke 6 holes into each cookie: 1 in the center, and 5 around the middle of the cookie. NOTE: this does help to prevent the cookies from bubbling up, but it isn’t a huge deal if they do bubble up, it doesn’t affect the texture. If in a hurry, you can skip this step.
- Bake – Bake one tray of the cookies on the center rack of your preheated oven for 18 to 22 minutes, or until the cookies are mostly dry to the touch. I do recommend baking the cookies one at a time, for best results. However, if you need to bake them together, then swap the cookie trays from bottom to middle rack half way through the cooking time.
- Cool – Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 15 minutes. Then, transfer them to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.
- Melt the chocolate coating – Once all of the cookies are completely cooled, melt the chocolate. Break up, or chop, the chocolate bars into small pieces, and add it to a microwave safe bowl, along with the coconut oil. Microwave on high for 30 second increments, stirring between each increment, until the chocolate is melted. Stir in the 1 tablespoon + 3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract until it is well combined into the chocolate. Alternately, you could melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Transfer the melted chocolate to a small bowl to make it easier for dipping.
- Dip the cookies into the chocolate – Use one of the baking pans and line it with parchment paper. Place a cookie onto a fork, and dip it into the chocolate, tap the fork on the side a few times to remove the excess chocolate, carefully set it onto the baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat until you have coated all of the cookies in chocolate. If the chocolate gets a little cold, then pop it back into the microwave for 30 seconds. NOTE: you may not use all of the chocolate. See notes on ideas of how to make use of the excess chocolate.
- Chill the cookies– Pop the cookies into the fridge and allow them to set completely, about 30 to 40 minutes.
- Enjoy – once the chocolate is set, you can enjoy the cookies! We like them chilled, straight from the fridge. Keep in mind, the chocolate coating does melt easily, so they should be served directly from the fridge.
- Store – store the cookies in a baggie, or air tight container, in the fridge for 3 weeks to a month. They may last even longer in the freezer.
Notes
substitutions – I would not recommend substituting any of the ingredients in this recipe. I tested it many times to get it just right, and each ingredient really plays an important roll in this recipe.
leftover melted chocolate – You may not need all of the melted chocolate, but it is easier to have extra than it is to not have enough. I poured my leftover chocolate into silcone molds, allowed them to set, and enjoyed them as a little extra chocolate peppermint treat. You could also spread out the chcoolate onto a parchment lined baking sheet and add some dried fruit, or nuts, to make a chocolate bark.
Make half of the cookies/freeze the dough – If you don’t want 40 cookies at one time you can easily freeze the dough and bake some up now, and bake up the rest later. Make the cookie dough recipe as is – (it is hard to make when it’s scaled down because not enough ingredients in the bowl makes it difficult to mix) – when you go to chill the dough, divide it in half, wrapping each half in separate pieces of plastic wrap. Store one half of the wrapped dough in a freezer bag. When you go to make the second half of the cookies place the frozen cookie dough in the fridge to defrost overnight. Reduce the chocolate coating in half: 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, 1 1/8 teaspoon coconut oil, 3 teaspoons peppermint oil.
Cook time – I did include the time it takes to bake the cookies individually, since thats what I recommend. If baking them at the same time, it only takes 18 to 22 minutes. These cookies are a little bit more work than most of my dessert recipes, but they are so worth the effort. See notes above for cutting the recipe in half!
References – The recipes I referred to during research to help me make my own version of gluten free thin mints: Gourmet Makes – Girl Scout Cookies, and Minimalist baker’s thin mints
