Baking for the holidays: these cookies could beat the Girl Guides kind

For the month of December at work, a few of us at work (we call ourselves "The Decorating Committee")  have decided to bring treats every other day until Christmas. It works out perfectly because there are exactly 11 people in our branch, and every other day would work out just perfectly right before Christmas.

I found a recipe on Food Network Canada. It's Anna Olson's Chocolate Mint Cookies from her days on Sugar. I have to be honest that I wasn't a big fan of her show, but I've tried a few of her recipes and they've all turned out so well. Especially after mastering this recipe for the first time, I am looking forward to try more recipes from her! I spent a total of 2.5 hours toiling in the kitchen (although I did escape to take a shower while the dough was chilling in the fridge), it was worth it. I think they could beat out the Chocolate Mint Girl Guide cookies-they don't have preservatives and all flavouring is natural. What could possibly be better? I'll definitely be making more of these during the holiday baking season.

Here's the recipe if you would like to give it try. The only thing I recommend is to keep the filling inside the mixing bowl while beating--the recipe says to knead it on a flat surface then add the peppermint extract. I found it too sticky so I just left it in the bowl to mix. Turned out great!

Ingredients

Cookies

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 6 tablespoons Dutch process cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• dash salt
• dash baking powder
• icing sugar, for garnish

Filling

• 1 egg white
• 1 3/4 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 2 drops to 3 drops peppermint extract

Directions

To Assemble

1.Beat butter until smooth and fluffy. Sift together icing sugar and cocoa powder over butter and beat in. Stir in vanilla, egg yolk and milk. Add flour, salt and baking powder to cocoa mixture and blend until incorporated. Shape dough into disc, wrap and chill for 20 minutes.

2.Preheat oven to 325° F. On a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thick. Cut into 1 ½-inch circles and transfer carefully to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until cookies can be lifted easily away from the parchment. Allow to cool on baking sheet.

3.For filling, put egg white in a bowl and beat in icing sugar, a few tablespoonfuls at a time, until a soft dough forms. Turn dough onto a surface dusted with icing sugar. Knead in remaining icing sugar and peppermint extract, until dough is no longer sticky.

4.To fill cookies, roll a teaspoon of dough into a ball and flatten a little. Sandwich between 2 cookies and press together to push icing to edges. Continue until all cookies have been filled.

5.Cookies can be glazed with chocolate to finish or dusted with icing sugar.

6.Yield: Approximately 2 dozen cookies

(Courtesy of Anna Olson from foodnetwork.ca)