Flourless Chocolate Mint Cookies

Hellooo? Remember me? I hope so. I took an unintentional break; a little thing called life swept me away for a bit, but I am back in the kitchen.

While so much has been going on, not too much of it is newsworthy; just life stuff. You know how it is. Sous Chef returned from Europe a few weeks ago and I have enjoyed so much having her at home. She will be home all through the holidays before returning to school in January. She has lots of wonderful stories about her semester abroad, but I will let her tell you about all that. I am sure she will be baking and blogging soon!

Recently while perusing some foodie blogs, I saw these cookies and I just had to make them. I had made some flourless oatmeal peanut butter cookies a while back that were so delicious. My first reaction after baking these was disappointment because my cookies did not look like the cookies in the picture that inspired me, but they were delicious and disappeared around here in very short order! They are made with egg whites and I think I whipped the egg whites too much so they were a bit like chocolate meringue cookies with a chewy, chocolate center. That can’t be bad, can it? I will definitely make them again and try to perfect them the second go around, but they were too delicious not to share! The recipe is adapted from Recipe Girl.

When I decided to make these cookies, I envisioned mint chips instead of chocolate and I was certain that I would be able to find them at the store easily. Well, not really. I went to several stores and then happened upon one bag of Nestle’s Limited Edition Dark Chocolate and Mint chips. I snatched them up. Since then, I have looked everywhere and can’t seem to find any more bags.

I didn’t realize they were so limited; it’s probably because they are so amazingly delicious! Nestle did not ask me to tell you that, they don’t even know who I am or that I bought a bag of their delicious limited edition chocolate and mint chips. However, if I knew Mr. Nestle, I would ask him to make lots of bags of these chips so you can buy them and put them in your cookies too! Moving on to the recipe…

Ingredients:

3 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 to 4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate and mint chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with silpat. In a large bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Next, whisk in the vanilla and 2 egg whites. Don’t whip the egg whites! Beat just until the batter is moistened. You’re looking for a brownie-like, thick and fudgy batter. If it seems too thick, add another egg white– then a 4th one if it still seems too thick. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Scoop the batter by the tablespoon onto the prepared baking sheets. Leave enough space between each cookie for them to spread. Bake for 10 -12 minutes, until the tops appear glossy and the cookies are lightly cracked. You need to let the cookies cool completely on the baking sheet before moving them off to a cooling rack or airtight cookie container. Makes about 2 to 3 dozen cookies.

Kitchenarian Notes: This is one of those discretionary recipes when it comes to the egg whites. Three seems to be the magic number of egg whites to add, but it all depends on the size of your eggs. If you add too many egg whites, these cookies will spread out way too thin. Remember to keep the batter thick and fudgy. And remember, don’t beat the egg whites!