Remember when I said in celebration of being self hosted I was going to post a recipe??? Taaaaaddddaaaa!

When I saw a post on facebook yesterday announcing it was Girl Scout Cookie Season (yes, this is an event in my mind), I was equally excited and dreadful. Does anyone else harbor memories of eating an entire sleeve in one sitting straight out of the freezer? What? You exercise self control and don’t freeze your girl scout cookies? Well, I think you’re weird. Those things are addicting! In an attempt to satisfy my craving, I made my own skinnified version. I was pretty nervous, but I have to say they turned out pretty awesome. Chocolate, minty, and almost fudge like. They aren’t quite as crispy and crumbly as the original, but the flavors are 100% there, and I feel like they have more of a fresh baked feel, which I prefer anyway.

I used this recipe for inspiration, but ended up changing a lot of things. They suggested rolling the dough into a log (which looked so terrible I refuse to post pictures) and slicing which I tried, but then also tried my roll and smoosh technique which I actually thought were prettier.

Skinnified Thin Mint Cookies

yield approx 30 cookies

For the cookies:

• 5 oz fat free cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 tbs light whipped butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup raw cane sugar
• 1/4 cup Splenda
• 2 tbs egg substitute
• dash vanilla extract
• scant 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
• 3/4 cup white whole wheat (or whole wheat pastry, or whatever you want) flour
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbs Dutch process cocoa powder (regular unsweetened chocolate will work if you don’t have Dutch process)**
• dash salt

For the coating:

• 1/3 cup grain sweetened chocolate chips
• 1 tsp light whipped butter
• dash peppermint extract

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder and salt. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat together cream cheese, butter, sugar and Splenda. Beat in vanilla, peppermint and egg substitute.
3. Slowly beat dry ingredients into cream cheese mixture, scraping down sides of bowl when necessary. Dough will be thick.
4. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours, or even overnight.
5. Preheat oven to 350. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
6. Take about a tablespoon of dough at a time and roll in your hands to make a ball, then flatten to about 1/4″ thickness.
7. Bake for 12-15 min. Cool completely.
8. Microwave chocolate chips and butter in 20 second spurts, stirring after each time until melted. Stir in peppermint.
9. Cover cookies completely with melted chocolate and allow to cool on parchment paper.