Recipe: Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

I wanted to bake cookies for a friend, and then I had a team retreat coming up, so I figured I had multiple ways to hand out these cookies (so that I don't eat them all!). This recipe was from the Family Cookie Recipes blog, and it looked easy enough.

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup butter softened (1 stick)
• 1 egg
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 box 3.4 oz instant vanilla pudding mix
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp mint extract
• 3 drops blue coloring + 10-15 drops green coloring
• 1½ cups chocolate chips

Directions

1. Start by preheating the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with non-stick cooking spray, set aside.
2. Begin by creaming together the sugar and butter, in a large bowl, until nice and fluffy. Then add in the egg, sour cream and dry pudding mix, stir well to combine.
3. Next, in a separate small bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda. After that, incorporate the flour mixture into the butter and pudding mixture and stir until well combined. 
4. Now, add the mint extract and food coloring until desired color is achieved. Lastly, add in the chocolate chips.
5. Drop the cookie dough by the rounded tablespoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.
6. When done baking, transfer to a cooling rack.
7. Serve fresh and warm, enjoy! 

I didn't have any food coloring, hence why my mint cookies aren't green. But I figure it's probably better for you anyway not to have those chemicals. I used mint chocolate chunks as my "chips," so I did get a little bit of green in there. I only had a family-size pack of pudding, so I used about a third of the powder and then just made pudding with the remainder. 

These cookies are easy to make, and while the dough started to turn into one big clump towards the end, I was easily able to scoop the dough with the tablespoon scoop. They were a big hit, so I might need to make them again. You could easily turn this recipe into many different flavors: vanilla or lemon with white chocolate chips, hazelnut extract with crushed up peanuts... so many combos!