{Thin Mint Cookies}

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup of powdered unrefined sugar, such as coconut sugar, rapadura, maple sugar or sucanat.
• 1/2 cup of cocoa powder (I use full-fat, high-quality, fair trade chocolate)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon unrefined salt
• 3/4 cup of flour of choice (see options above, I used a combination of rice flour and sorghum)
• 2 cups chocolate chips, I recommend dark chocolate
• 1 teaspoon mint extract
• 2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil

Directions

1. With a hand mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugar, and continue to cream. Add the cocoa powder, salt and vanilla and mix until well combined and it is the texture (and flavor) of frosting. (It’s delicious. I won’t tell if you try a bit). Add the flour and mix until just combined. Gather into a ball and flatten into a disk. Wrap well and place in the freezer for 15 minutes.
2. Put parchment paper on two cookie sheets. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the dough thinly (remember that these are supposed to be thin cookies), but not so thin as to make it hard to transfer, about 1/8 of an inch. Cut out with a small round shape (or whatever you desire. Place on cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes.
4. Remove from oven and carefully slide the parchment paper with the cookies onto the counter and let cool completely.
5. Place the chocolate chips, mint extract and butter or coconut oil in a double boiler (you can also use a heat-proof bowl that sits snuggly on the top of a pot). Melt over simmering water until chocolate and butter/oil is just melted. Make sure no steam gets into the bowl while simmering. Remove from heat.
6. Put more parchment on the now-cooled cookie sheets.
7. Carefully drop each cookie into the melted chocolate and spoon chocolate over the top of each cookie. Use a wide fork to fish it out and gently shake the fork to remove excess chocolate. Place on parchment paper. Repeat until all of the cookies are covered. I find that chocolate hardens much faster at a cold temperature, so I place my cookies in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
8. Once hardened, enjoy. I double dare you to eat just one.

Makes between 2-3 dozen