Andes Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies

After my first week participating in the 12 Weeks of Christmas Treats, I decided to make a list of all the things I wanted to make, so I pulled out my 3" green "sweets" binder and started flipping through the pages to see what would meet the qualifications. I have a really bad habit of collecting recipes and then never making them, so I thought this just might be the kick in the butt to make some of those holiday recipes before it is too late.

I found this cookie recipe from Fake Ginger and immediately decided on it, because while it's Christmas-y, its not too Christmas-y to make in the beginning of October. That probably only makes sense to me, huh?

If you have no idea what I'm talking about or why I'm making Christmas treats in October, I'll back up and explain. See, I joined a blog hop called the 12 Weeks of Christmas Treats. It's organized by Brenda over at Meal Planning Magic. For the next 10 weeks, we are making and sharing treats that you would serve to guests for the holidays. Depending on what you choose to make, you could freeze these treats in advance and then just bake them up right before some guests come over. I'd love to have this option, but the freezer is currently overflowing and my three year wish for a deep freezer is not in sight.  (Hey Santa, you wanna write that one down?)

If you are a blogger and want to join us, it's not too late to sign up. Just head on over to Meal Planning Magic and sign up! If you're not a blogger, you can just come back every Wednesday until December 11th and check out the blog hop to see what everyone has made. Or you could always follow the Pinterest Board.

Andes Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Slightly adapted from: Fake Ginger
Yield: 4-5 dozen cookies
Printer Friendly

Ingredients:

• • 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • ¾ tsp. baking soda
  • ⅛ tsp. salt
  • 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
  • ¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
  • ⅔ cup sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 2 eggs, at room temperature
  • ¾ cup chocolate chips
  • 4.67 oz. package Andes candies, unwrapped and chopped

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Combine flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, meat the butter and sugars together until smooth. Then add in vanilla and eggs, one at a time until fully combined.
3. Slowly add the flour mixture into the stand mixer until combined, then the chocolate chips and Andes candies.
4. Scoop rounded tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

When I wrote out the grocery list for Tom, I didn't realize there was a difference between the Andes peppermint candies that come individually wrapped and the peppermint crunch chips that Amanda used in her recipe. Instead of trekking back out to the store in search of these, I decided to just go with what I had.

After baking the first batch, I noticed that you couldn't really see the candies in these cookies and unless you bit into one, you'd have no idea of the mint flavor going on there, so I tried putting some whole candies into partially baked cookies, which really didn't do much either, other than give me three cookies to use to make a picture more obvious. Either way, these unsuspecting little cookies are rather tasty!