Chocolate / Chocolate Mint Cookies

I made these cookies for little holiday gift bags, and I decided to only dip half the cookies, leaving the other half plain, but plenty chocolatey!

I first saw the recipe from a BBB post by sky_vs_stars at http://community.livejournal.com/bakebakebake/2211577.html#cutid1, who apparently got it from allrecipes.com, where each cookie was decorated by melting an Andes over the top. Well, I didn't have any of those, so I melted some peppermint bark chunks and decided to just dip the cookies in that. Anyway, here's the recipe duplicated below for convenience:

Chocolate Mint Cookies
from allrecipes.com
yields 3.5 dozen cookies

6 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 egg
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 (4.5 ounce) packages Andes mints

1. Heat the butter, sugar and water in a small pot over medium heat; stir occasionally until melted. Remove from heat and pour in the chocolate chips. Stir until melted. Set the mixture aside to cool for 10 minutes.

2. Pour the chocolate into a mixing bowl and beat in the egg. Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl and then stir into the chocolate mixture. Put the dough into the fridge for 1 hour to chill.

3. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease the cookie sheets.

4. Roll the dough into 1-inch sized balls and place on the cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes, being careful not to overbake!

5. When cookies come out, place 1 (or half) of an Andes mint on the top of each cookie. Let it melt slightly and then use the back of a teaspoon to swirl the Andes mint around to cover the top of the cookie. Let cool completely on wire racks.

And now, pictures!

Fresh out of the oven:



.

Dipped:

They look so cozy, in their peppermint bark blankets x]







Yum!

My double batch made about 150 small cookies, I think. But mine are definitely quite small... most were about 1/4 the size of my palm.

My notes would be:

I had a bit of an issue mixing in the egg... I freaked out because I thought it was cooking, so I stuck everything into the freezer for ten minutes. It probably wasn't as big of a deal as I imagined it to be, but I seem to have bad luck with mixing temperatures... I once had melted butter basically crystallize in batter because I hadn't let the milk come to room temperature... ANYWAY, enough about my woes: I'd just recommend waiting a little longer before mixing in the egg.
Also, I overcooked one batch by a minute or two, and it was distinctly harder than the rest - if you bake them just until their tops have puffed and cracked [I actually used a toothpick test to check for doneness! I just pulled them out once the toothpick came out clean from the cookie's center], they'll have a lovely soft and chewy texture, even after a few days.
Oh! One more thing - I think mine might have been quite puffy / didn't spread as much because I chilled my dough overnight - it was quite stiff in the morning, but that made it pretty easy to roll out. It warms up quite quickly, though. I do like my cookies thick, so the puffiness was nice :)

So, bottom line, these cookies were definitely delicious - probably because of the obscene amounts of chocolate in the batter! They're pretty easy to make, but I was nervously tight on time - the recipe involves a lot of waiting, so just make sure you have time to do that!