Two years ago, I discovered a fantastic chocolate shortbread recipe from King Arthur Flour. The cookies - named Chocolate Dreams - lived up to their designation as they were rich, chocolatey, and had a great flaky texture.
As the cookies were in the oven those years ago, I browsed the KAF comments to see what others thought of the recipe. A few intriguing comments mentioned adding peppermint extract to the dough, which apparently provided the cookies a Thin Mint-like flavor.
Those comments have stayed in my head over the past few years, and I recently decided to make this recipe modification myself. I purchased what I thought was peppermint extract and then made this simple dough. I didn't notice anything was awry with this alteration until the cookies were baking in the oven and overwhelmed our kitchen with a consuming peppermint smell.
I checked my tiny bottle of peppermint extract and discovered that in fact it was peppermint oil. Two very different things my frantic internet search immediately told me. With of course, the latter being far more powerful than the former.
As the cookies cooled, my husband and I still decided to give them a try. My husband said they tasted like Altoids, which seemed pretty spot on as I hesitantly ate a small cookie myself.
This recipe attempt wasn't a complete disaster though in the sense that when I took them to work the next day, a lot of people seemed to actually like them! Even said they tasted just like Thin Mints. Well, to each her own!
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