Give a girl a cookie, she's happy for a day. Teach a girl to bake cookies...

So the ol' larder's running low. Low on butter, low on AP flour, low on brown sugar. Who has two thumbs and refuses to let that stop her from making cookies? This girl.

I only had 1 stick and a couple tablespoons of butter left, and no self respecting cookie recipe uses that little butter without any other fat in it (like peanut butter cookies). So I thought to myself, what is butter really. A ratio of delicious fat and water. So I figure, a few tablespoons of shortening and some good ol' liquor for the water aspect and we're cooking with Crisco, baby. Literally. The shortening lends to making the cookie more tender as well. And then there's the flour. I was down to my last cup so I had to use cake flour to reach the quota. Due to the lower protein content of cake flour, this also resulted in a fluffier, tender-er cookie. Yay for improvising! I'm sure this recipe would turn out fine with 2 1/4 C of regular AP and 2 sticks of butter, but why mess with a good thing?




Drunken Grasshoppers (Get it?)

• 1 C all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 C cake flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 C cocoa powder
• 1 stick and 2 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp shortening
• 3/4 C brown sugar
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp Peppermint McGillicuddy's (hence the name!)
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• Semi-sweet chocolate (melted)

Whisk flours, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder in a small bowl and set aside. Cream together butter, shortening and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg, liquor and extract and mix thoroughly. Slowly incorporate flour mixture until well blended, but don't over-mix. Scoop out onto cookie sheets. I don't think they need to be greased, but I always use Silpats so I don't know for sure. 

Bake at 375 for approximately 5-7 minutes until they're no longer shiny (maybe longer if you're making big cookies). 

Now, the cookies are good. They're great in fact. But I thought to myself, how can I make awesome into awesome-er? How 'bout dunking them in chocolate.

Just melt a bunch of chocolate chips, about a half a bag or so, in the microwave or over a double boiler and dunk away! I added a 1/2 tsp of peppermint extract to the chocolate prior to melting for an extra minty kick. Then, I just dunked the bottoms of the cookies and let them harden upside down (chocolate side up) on parchment in the fridge. If halfway through dunking your chocolate gets a little too thick, just nuke it for 20 seconds.