Cookie of the Month - Green-eyed Monsters

It's cookie of the month time again and we are being terrorized by green-eyed monsters (aka chocolate mint) already coming out for Halloween.  I am so excited to report that I made changes to the recipe in hopes of making chocolate cookies that did not flatten out like lifeless pancakes.  And as you can see by the photo, the changes worked!  I have made chocolate cookies a couple of times before and they always went quite flat.  This time I wanted bumpy, fudgy, yummy cookies and I have to say... they turned out PERFECTLY!  I am addicted to Allrecipes.com.  Love that site.  I get almost all my new recipes from there.  I first check the rating to make sure a lot of people have liked the recipe and then I check all the submitted photos.  In this case, I checked to see if the chocolate cookies in the photos were  bumpy, thick and fudgy or flat pancakes.  They weren't all flat.  Then I read the reviews and the different suggestions made by various people who already made the recipe and usually incorporate some of their ideas that  seem to make sense.  Here are the ingredients I used:

3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup Crisco
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
2/3 cups cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 12 oz. bag mint chocolate chips
green mint chocolate chips for the eyes

Start out with the butter and Crisco in your bowl.  This is the first place I changed the recipe.  The recipe called for 1 cup of butter.  I love butter.  I always use butter.  My hips will explain that to you.  But, I know Crisco usually makes cookies with more body, so I compromised just a bit.  1/4 cup Crisco -- what did we ever do before Crisco sticks?  I always hated measuring the dang Crisco in the old days when the only choice was the big fat can of fat.

Add the sugars, eggs and vanilla.  Another change to the recipe which called for 1 1/2 cups of white sugar.  I changed it to 1 cup white and 1/2 cup brown.  I just thought brown sugar would add to the flavor.

Beat until light and fluffy.

Add the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  OK another change here.  The recipe didn't call for the baking powder and only 1/4 tsp. of salt.  I wanted pudgier cookies so I added the baking powder.  Also, salt brings out the flavors so I doubled it.

I barely mixed this together in order to keep the rising ingredients active.  At this point it was a fudgy wonderful bowl of yumminess.

Oh, yeah.  There will be some bowl lickin' today.

Now that the holidays are getting near,

the stores are carrying mint chocolate chips.

 

Add the whole bag and gently stir.

Drop by spoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet -- gotta use airbake.  Quite often I like to refrigerate my dough before putting it onto the cookie sheets, but I didn't this time.

Add two green mint chips for eyes.

Oooooh, creepy.

"I always feel like -- somebody's watching me."

Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes or so.

Will they flatten out or have some fudgy, bumpy depth?

 

I watched through the window in the oven door as they cooked.  It seemed like they weren't flattening out!  Would they pancake as soon as I took them out of the oven and they hit the cold air?  The answer?  NO!  Yipee!

These little beauties kept their shape!

And the taste was to die for!  Not cakey, crumbly or dry... just yummy, fudgy, chewy, chocolatey, mintness.  I hope Beth and her family enjoy this month's cookie.  Maybe next time I make these, I'll skip the mint and add pecans.  Makes about 44 cookies.