Chocolate chocolate chip mint cookies

Have you ever made those chocolate chip cookies that are made with the instant vanilla pudding mix?  Those are some of my favorite chocolate chip cookies and every time I make them, people swoon! They turn out perfect and delicious every time.  Well, this recipe is based on that one.  Except this one uses chocolate instant pudding mix, a bit of unsweetened cocoa to deepen the chocolately-ness and a couple of large handfuls of broken up Andes Mints. You know those little flat chocolate & green mints you get in some restaurants after dinner?  Yeah, those.  It took forever to unwrap all of those little mints. The cookies definitely benefitted from the addition of plain chocolate chips too. If I would have used all mints, it would have been too minty.

These cookies were so fragile after emerging from the oven.  You couldn't even lift one off the parchment for a good 1/2 hour.  I think because the Andes mints melted into such a liquid state, that they kind of had to harden again before you could lift the cookies.

This is the 2nd mint cookie I've made in a month. That's totally unusual.  I normally don't ever eat anything mint.

If you like chocolate mint, then you will love these soft chocolately cookies.  There is no crispness or even chewiness to these. They are cakey and soft with a deep chocolate flavor with a nice hint of creme de menthe flavoring.

Enjoy!

Chocolate chocolate chip mint cookies

4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used dutch processed)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I used half semi sweet half milk chocolate chips)
2 boxes of Andes mints, broken into small pieces


Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, unsweetened cocoa, salt and baking soda, set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips & Andes mints. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven or until edges are set.Cookies will be very fragile for awhile till they cool. Cool on a wire rack.(I felt the edges & when they were no longer super soft, I removed the cookies from the oven)


Notes: I always always line my cookie sheets with parchment paper. I bake the cookies on the parchment, then after removing the cookie sheet from the oven, I simply slide the piece of parchment off (with the hot cookies on it) right onto a large cooling rack to finish cooling.
As far as parchment goes, I buy a 1000 pieces of the full sheet parchment at a restaurant supply store for about $60. The box is heavy and the sheets are kept flat (as opposed to a large roll).  The box lasts for over a year.  I have to trim the paper to fit my 3/4 sheet pans, which I use for baking cookies.  I highly recommend buying parchment this way. WAY less expensive than purchasing it in the store.  I also have bought 1000 sheets this way online.  I think the website was...Surfas... or something like that.  If you happen to bake often, you need to invest in some good quality and inexpensive parchment.