Chocolate Mint Crinkle Cookies

Cookie season is coming – this dense, chewy chocolate cookie has been in my repertoire for years, but I recently experimented with some peppermint extract, making them chocolate-mint – perfect for the holiday season. Bonus: they’re lower in fat than most cookie recipes, with only 1/4 cup in almost 2 dozen cookies.

I also love that you don’t need to decorate these – they get dressed up before they go into the oven, then crack as they spread and rise. Package them on their own, to prevent getting icing sugar on other cookies they might share a tin with.

Chocolate Mint Crinkles

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 tsp. mint extract
icing sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt, breaking up any lumps of brown sugar. Add the butter and pulse or stir with a fork, pastry cutter or whisk until the mixture is well combined and crumbly.

Add eggs and vanilla and stir by hand just until the dough comes together. The dough will be fairly dry – it will seem at first that there isn’t enough moisture, but if you keep stirring, or get in there and use your fingers, eventually it will come together.

Place a few heaping spoonfuls of icing sugar into a shallow dish. Roll dough into 1 1/2” balls and roll the balls in icing sugar to coat. Place them about 2” apart on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 12–14 minutes, until just set around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 20 cookies.