Chocolate Peppermint Patty Cookies

Joyce at Oasis at Bird-in-Hand posted the Paleo Indulgences recipe for Thin Mints today, and I was on it in a hot minute. They're delicious, but either I messed up ~ even though I triple-checked the original recipe ~ or the interior isn't meant to be hard and crunchy, like the Girl Scout cookie. If it was my mistake, it was a great one! These taste just like a peppermint patty cookie, cool and minty and chocolaty and chewy. Store them in the freezer and have a couple when your evening sweet tooth starts singing!

I prefer semi-sweet to dark chocolate, so I went 40/60 instead of using all dark. And since, when it comes to chocolate, I adhere to the racer's axiom: "Some is good, more is better, too much is just right", I dipped each cookie twice. Makes about 20 cookies, and you might want to double the recipe ;-)

1 c very finely ground blanched almond flour*

1 tsp organic coconut flour
2 TB good quality cocoa powder
⅛ tsp finely ground kosher or sea salt
¼ tsp baking soda
2 TB melted coconut oil
¼ c  raw honey
1 tsp peppermint extract (real, not imitation)

4 oz dark (60%) chocolate, finely chopped
2 oz semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
½ tsp peppermint extract

Preheat oven to 350*F

Combine the flours, cocoa powder, salt & soda in a food processor, and pulse till evenly combined. Add the coconut oil, honey and tsp peppermint extract and pulse until dough forms and is all gathered together. 

Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper to ⅛ inch thick. Use a ruler. If you got it too thin, fold the dough over on itself and start over; it's very forgiving, and you don't need to worry about glutens developing. Slide the paper (and cookies) onto a cookie sheet and freeze for 15-20 minutes. They need to be really cold to hold their shape, so don't go by time, go by how cold the dough is.

Using a 2-inch cookie cutter, cut out dough and transfer to a new sheet of parchment paper on the cookie sheet. Like any rolled cookie, gather the leftover dough into a new ball and roll out again between the parchment sheets and keep cutting cookie shapes. The cookies won't expand, so you can probably fit them all on one sheet, as I did. 

Bake for 4 minutes. Cool completely on the baking sheets, then freeze on the sheet for 1 hour. 

In the meantime, melt chocolate and peppermint extract in a small heatproof bowl over a simmering water. When the chocolate's cooled enough to work with, dip each cookie: I did it twice, top-bottom-top-bottom, then place again on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Freeze for 1 hr. Store in freezer in ziploc bags or plastic container.

*I've been buying JK Brand almond flour on Amazon because it's high quality baking flour, not almond meal. By the way, don't use Bob's Red Mill, it's way too coarse! Hmmm. **tapping chin** Maybe that's where their crunchy cookie texture came from?! Anyway, you can buy baking quality almond flour at Oasis at a much better price.