Mint. Fudge. Is there really any question about how good these are? Little slices of heaven, might be the words. I mean, it's actual fudge sauce. And they are so pretty looking. I make these almost every year, so when Dave saw what was going on in the kitchen, he was giddy with anticipation. When I told him I needed actual words from him to describe them, I received the following, almost verbatim, stated with a mouthful of cookie, "Oooh, nomnomnomnom...good." Ok, not almost verbatim, but pretty close.
Another Better Homes and Gardens recipe, I found this on MSN House and Home in 2002 under the title After Dinner Mint Cookies. I first had to change the process of the recipe because I was ending up with a crumbly dough. And the original recipe called for 1/2 cup of finely crushed Oreos as the filling. I tried it that way once. Not good results. The dough crumbled when I cut it and the crushed Oreos just didn't have the impact, so I ended up with a broken mint cookie with chocolate cookie crumbs. Then I had a stroke of genius and thought, what if I swapped out the cookies for fudge sauce? The result? Perfection. It's a soft cookie with a gooey fudginess (nope, not a word) and a perfect mint to chocolate ratio. They are a crowd pleaser, which is why I have to make them every year.
Mint Fudge Spirals
Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 large egg
1/4 teaspoon mint extract
3-6 drops green food coloring*
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup fudge sauce ice cream topping
*Remember last week when I noticed I didn't have any green food coloring? Yeah, I forgot again, so I had to work my magic and make it green. Boo for forgetfulness, yea for ingenuity!
Beat butter in a large mixing bowl on high. Add sugar and baking powder and beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl as necessary. Beat in egg, mint extract and food coloring. I go for a light green color, but make it as dark as you want. Note that the color will lighten slightly when you add the flour.
Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer. Use a wooden spoon to stir in any remaining flour.
If you are not using a stand mixer, don't even bother trying to beat in the flour. It will just turn to a crumbly mess if you use a hand mixer to beat in some of the flour. Stir it all in by hand, in batches. If you do use a stand mixer, swap out your beater before adding the flour. Instead of using the wire beater attachment, use the paddle attachment (or even the dough blade). You want to get all the flour incorporated and create a cohesive dough that you can roll out.
Divide dough in half, form into discs and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in refrigerator about an hour or overnight.
Roll one disc between two sheets of waxed paper. Now, the recipe says to roll "into an 8x7 inch rectangle" but if you saw my Almond Swirls post, you know how I feel about this. Just roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and make it as reasonably even on the edges as possible.
Peel off the top layer of waxed paper and spread on a layer of fudge sauce. You don't want it too thick or it will ooze out during baking, but you don't want it too thin, either. Generally, I put on enough so that I can just no longer see the dough underneath.
Starting at the bottom, roll up the dough jelly-roll style, removing bottom sheet of waxed paper as you go.
Pinch the edges to seal and fold over the ends. Wrap in waxed paper and chill about 4 hours or overnight. Repeat with second disc.
Remove one roll from the refrigerator and using your sharpest knife, cut the dough crosswise into 1/4 inch slices. I like to cut the whole roll in half, and then work from the inside out. Wipe the knife occasionally to remove any excess dough or fudge. When you get to the ends, keep cutting, even it the spiral is weak or doesn't have much fudge to it. Unlike the Almond Swirls, you generally don't need to repair cookies or create spirals where there were none. Since you only have one piece of dough, the fudge sauce acts as a really good glue. At worst, if you tuck in the ends of your dough after you'd rolled it up, you'll just have some mint cookies with minimal fudge in them. They're still tasty extras for the baker!
Place cookies on an ungreased or parchment/silicone lined cookie sheet.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 8-9 minutes. You want to catch these cookies just before the edges turn brown because you don't want that to impact the pretty color. Turn baking sheet 180 degrees halfway through. If using more than one sheet at a time, rotate positions in the oven for more even baking. Cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes, then move to complete cooling on rack.
Remove these carefully because the cookie will be set before the fudge sauce is cool, so you don't want to pull to hard and break the cookie. Just be patient and gentle.
Makes 5 1/2 dozen.
Happy Baking,
The Cookie Princess
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