Chocolate mint cream sandwich cookies

These cookies were not planned out. They just kind of evolved.  I just felt like baking something.  Do you ever get that urge?  I do quite often and on this day I felt like baking chocolate chocolate chip cookies.  I chose a recipe from Food Network for no other reason than it's the first recipe I came across online.  It got good ratings and I can see why.  Perfect amount of chocolate. They were soft & chewy and very easy to make.  I had 1 stick of butter left after making the cookies so I figured...why not make some quick buttercream.  I never make mint anything so I'm not sure why I thought of adding peppermint oil to the buttercream but I did.  I figured the mint buttercream had to be green so people would more likely assume it's mint. I wish I would have had a more irish cream flavor mint but I don't. I thought of adding straight Baily's to take the place of the milk & the extract but I didn't want to have alcohol in the cookie.  So peppermint oil it was.

 I added the green sprinkles on the sides so that when I packaged individual sandwich cookies in cellophane bags, the icing on the sides wouldn't stick to the bag.  I piped a good amount of buttercream for the filling. So much so that when you bit into the sandwich cookies, the icing kind of oozed out on the sides.  Total yum. 

I like homemade sandwich cookies. They take a little more effort than just baking the cookies but they just look so complete & yummy.  These are rich and filling and toothachingly sweet but they are oh so delicious!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Food Network

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups chocolate chips, 2 Hershey's chocolate bars, chopped or M&M'S
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a bowl stir together flour, salt, and baking soda. In another large bowl stir together butter, both sugars, eggs, vanilla and cocoa. Gradually stir flour mixture into butter mixture and mix until combined. Stir chocolate chips and walnuts, if using, and stir to distribute evenly.
For cookies: Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheets and bake about 10 minutes. Cool on a baking rack.


The simple buttercream I made consisted of:

1 stick of softened butter
A couple of drops of peppermint oil (you can use any flavor extract)
About 4 cups of powdered sugar
Enough milk to reach desired consistency

Combine the ingredients and beat until smooth