Minted Walnut Double Chocolate Cookies

My boyfriend had a Remembrance parade to partake in today (he's in the reserves) and I had promised him yesterday that I would make him some Chocolate Chip cookies.

Although I love to bake, I get pretty bored with making the same thing (especially something as basic as Choc. Chip Cookie). But I had some inspiration from a Cold Lab from the week before where we made spiced nuts.

I wanted to combine a nice rich chocolate batter with mint in some way but I find that mint extract overwhelms in something like this. So I decided that I would coat walnuts with a light oil and some dried mint and then roast them off.

I added the walnut's to the (slightly) modified chocolate chip cookie recipe from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook and I had a decadent double chocolate cookie with a walnut crunch and just a hint of mint.

MINTED WALNUT DOUBLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES

1/4 Pound Butter
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1/4 Cup Cream

1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/4 Cup Cocoa
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts
3/4 Cup Chocolate Chip

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
• Toss the Walnuts to coat with canola oil, sugar, and mint
• Put on baking sheet and roast until nicely toasted and browned

• Cream the butter, add the sugars, beat until light and smooth
• Beat in the egg and vanilla, stir in the cream
  

• Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa
• Add to the creamed butter/sugar, mix until incorporated
• Add more cream if needed to make a batter
  
• Fold in the nuts and chocolate chips
• Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet, bake 8-10 minutes

Some tips to remember with this recipe:

• make sure you cream the butter and sugars well, this adds air which helps give some rise to the cookies.
• be sure to sift together the dry ingredients, especially the cocoa powder which is prone to lumps
• when working with baking soda you must get the product into the oven ASAP, once baking soda is mixed with anything moist it activates, if you don't get it into the oven all of your rising power will be out of the product before the heat can trap it
• When making any type of baked product like cookies or pastries or cakes, anything that you want to be tender, be very careful about only mixing enough to incorporate the wet and dry ingredients, and be gently fold in anything else like the chocolate chips and nuts. The reason behind this is that once wheat flour is moistened it begins to form gluten which toughens a product, the more you work it the more gluten forms, the tougher and less tender your end result will be

I was quite happy with the result of this recipe, I accidentally under baked my cookies a little. Next time I'll leave them in for the full 10 minutes. Always remember, the time will vary depending on your oven. They are as individual as cats.

Happy Cookin'