Alana
After floating around on a lake for a good portion of my day, I arrived home to the task of coming up with a baking concoction to take to my buddy’s birthday party. Roopa made a chocolate peanut butter cake to bring, so I needed to find my own baking niche that did not involve cake, chocolate, or peanut butter.
My buddy Alex suggested another batch of cookies because he really enjoyed the hot chocolate cookies that I brought up to the lake. So I went through my mental list of cookie recipes that I’ve been meaning to try (much more limited than my list of to-try cupcakes sadly), and decided on grasshopper cookies.
Minty-green cookies 🙂
Grasshoppers are cocktails that were popular in the 1950-60’s (as per Wikipedia), primarily consisting of creme de menthe and creme de cacao. There is nothing better than bringing booze-themed baking to birthday parties; score!!
I went to the grocery store to get cookies & cream pudding mix as per the recipe instructions, but there wasn’t any in stock. I got white chocolate instead, but since that was already deviating from the original recipe I ended up going a little renegade in my kitchen. For some reason the original recipe didn’t actually contain any creme de menthe, so I made the proactive decision to include it 🙂
No complaints at the moment 🙂
The cookies actually turned out really well. They are really soft because of the pudding, and have just the right amount of minty-ness between the peppermint extract and creme de menthe. I know the pudding is supposed to add the creme de cacao flavour, but it might be interesting to see how subbing in 1 tbsp of creme de cacao for creme de menthe would taste. The original also called for ½ cup of chopped fudge mint cookies, but I didn’t see any at the store (you fold them in at the end if you want to include them). Anyways, enjoy!
Grasshopper Cookies
Ingredients
¾ cup butter, softened
¾ cup brown sugar
¼ cup sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp vanilla
⅛ tsp. peppermint extract
2 tbsp creme de menthe
2-3 drops green food colouring (optional)
1 4-oz box of Oreo cookies & cream pudding mix*
1 tsp baking soda
2¼ cups flour
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla, mint extract, creme de menthe, and food colouring. After each ingredient blend until incorporated, scrapping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
Add pudding mix and baking soda. Mix well.
Add flour in three parts, mixing until incorporated after each addition.
Place spoonfuls of dough on ungreased baking sheets, and bake for 8-10 min**. Let cookies cool on the sheet for a few minutes before removing them.
* The grocery store ran out of cookies & cream, so I used white chocolate
** I found closer to 10 minutes was better.
Chateau Gateau 