The Siren’s Chocolate Mint Cookie

words

Her voice like singing of sirens
drown myself against the rocks and the waves
Defeater - Divination

Got the demon in my veins,
Crawling blind and my head's a wreck
Wear it like a badge (of honor) on our chest,
But it's more like a noose wrapped around my neck
The more I fight the tighter it gets,
Cutting off my air and I can't breathe
Like the siren's song so innocent,
Till you're it's victim and cannot leave
The Unseen - Useless Regrets

I’ve had a very stressful last 11 or so days. This has led me to try and develop some new recipes which didn’t necessary help with that stress level. I can say I’ve baked a total of 5 or so full batches of cookies, between the full and half batch tests. This one was a product of the learning from all of that. DCA19 had a work trip this week so I asked her if she wanted anything to take with her. She said yes. After prying out of her what that meant I found myself walking the aisles of Whole Foods. I’d been working on a different chocolate cookie so I decided to go all in on this one. Staring at me was a bag of mint chips. I grabbed them and some chocolate and left.

I learned that you should use baking powder when using Dutch processed cocoa powder and baking soda with unsweetened cocoa powder. It has something to do with the chemical reaction between them. it’s easy to remember when you think that dutch is closer in the alphabet to powder and unsweetened is closer to soda.

So now I have 4 types of chocolate in this cookie, semi-sweet, dark, milk, and dutch processed cocoa powder. The mint was just enough flavor to lure you back for more. All of this makes me think of sirens luring men to their death. They’ve always been a strange fascination of mine. Not sure if it’s the music I listened to that had references in them, suicidal ideation, or unhealthy past relationships. There’s a darkness with a sweet caring side to these cookies. Be careful. This took a weird turn but whatever.

The cookies have been a huge success for my confidence and have been loved by everyone who has had the opportunity to try them. I’m still surprised they turned out perfectly the first time. The other recipes I’ve been working on needed some tweaks. I’m on round 3 for one of them and still not quite happy with those.

These pictures really show just how different chocolate can be. The lower the percentage the less cocoa mass there really is. Usually offset with milk, sugar, or other additions such as salt, almonds, etc.

Ingredients

• 1 Cup unsalted butter

• 1 Cup dark brown sugar

• 1/2 Cup granulate sugar

• 2 large eggs

• 1 teaspoon of vanilla

• 1/2 Cup Dutch processed cocoa powder - do not substitute with unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 2 Cups all purpose flour

• 1 3.2 oz bar dark chocolate 70%

• 1 3.2 oz bar milk chocolate 33%

• 3/4 Cup large semi sweet chocolate chip cookies (Ghirardelli “Grand Chips”)

• 1 Cup Guittard mint chips

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Rough chop the dark and milk chocolate bars and set aside.

3. In the bowl of your stand mixer cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. This should be 2 - 3 minutes.

4. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until incorporated.

5. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and dutch processed cocoa powder.

6. Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet ingredients while mixing on low.

7. Add the chopped chocolate, chocolate chips, and mint chips.

8. Mix slowly until evenly distributed.

9. Drop the cookies by 1 1/2 Tablespoon onto a baking sheet.

10. Bake each batch on the middle rack for 12 minutes.

11. Remove and let the cookies sit on the pan for 2-3 more minutes.

12. Remove from the pan and let them cool completely on a cooling rack.

13. If you’re me you won’t wait and you’ll burn your mouth eating one or two of them. It’s totally worth it I promise. Store in an air-tight container. It makes about 4 dozen.

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