Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

These here folks are my personal favorite Christmas cookie ever. Maybe even my favorite cookie ever.

I got the recipe originally from Martha Stewart.

Here is the sad part of the story. For some strange reason, although I love peppermint, peppermint does not like me. I actually get the worst headache. I don't want to call it a migraine, because I have too much respect for those unfortunate that get those. But if you could take one step down, and imagine the worst headache, that is what peppermint does to me. So sad. Poor me. :(

But once a year I make these, and I usually will only have a couple before I go to bed in hopes that I can sleep straight through the pain. Or if I have them earlier, I wash them down with some ibuprofen. I know, life is sad, but I just can't imagine a December without them.

Well, here it goes.

Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies

1 & 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour

1/2 Cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp coarse salt

4 ounces milk chocolate, chopped (I use milk chocolate chips)

1 stick unsalted butter

1 & 1/2 Cups sugar

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. pure peppermint extract

3 large eggs

45 peppermint candies, coarsely crushed

Begin unwrapping the candies and have one for yourself of course, since I can't.

In a bowl mix the flour, cocoa, soda and salt, set aside.

Melt butter and chocolate in a heatproof mixer bowl set over a pan of simmering water.

After it's melted attach bowl to mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add sugar and extracts.

 

yummy I wish you could smell that right now.

Add eggs, one at a time as you mix at medium-low speed.

Slow down speed and add flour mixture.

Take 15 of the candies and crush them. I put them in a plastic bag and with the side of my mallet I hit each piece only once.

Take those and add to the mix.

Refrigerate dough in fridge at least 30 minutes. This is when I clean up my mess and preheat oven to
325 degrees.

Place cookies on your cookie sheet or stone lined with parchment paper (a girl's best friend!).

I use the small Pampered Chef scoop. It makes the shaping clean, easy and the perfect size cookie.

Flatten cookie a bit with your fingers and add coarsely crushed peppermints, remember, you have 30 more to play around with.

Here is the end result.

 

Here is the tricky thing about these cookies.

They take about 13 minutes to bake. I bake them 15 minutes, because they take longer on a stone. So if you have a stone, bake longer. BUT, for some reason they really like to stick to the parchment paper.

The best solution to this problem would be to overcook them, but you may not want to do that. Here is what I do. Once I take them out of the oven I leave them to rest on the stone 3-4 minutes. Then I remove the whole batch by grabbing two corners of the parchment paper and place it on a cooling rack. Wait long enough for them to cool before trying to remove from the parchment paper. Place the paper with cookies still on them on a flat surface and use the back side of the spatula to scrape off. That helps. Anything that sticks to the parchment paper is fair game, like licking the bowl!
I hope that made sence. It is worth the trouble. I think the reason that I like these cookies so much is well, first of all, chocolate and peppermint is like the perfect marriage. Also, the fact that they are made with candy makes them chewey. Oh my word, just too good!
I hope you make them and that you love them as much as I do. You probably won't have any left for Santa.