The Em Dish: Homemade Thin Mints

Girl Scout cook­ies mean more to me than just a sugar-filled dis­trac­tion dur­ing the dull win­ter to spring months.

Most of my child­hood to teen years were spent in Girl Scout troops. I remem­ber attend­ing the big cookie sell­ing kick-offs held at the local malls, sit­ting in the vestibule at K-mart behind a fold­ing table and stacks of cookie boxes and going door-to-door in my grandmother’s neigh­bor­hood with my fold-out cookie form while my Dad sat in our car, watch­ing me from a few houses down.

And after a solid hour-or-two effort of sell­ing on my own, my par­ents would inevitably take the fold-out forms to work, where they would really sell the boxes I needed to get the spe­cial patch for the year.

And did you know that Girl Scout cook­ies are made in Louisville? Best. Field trip. Ever.

I say all of this to express my respect for the whole Girl Scout rigamarole.

So when I found this recipe for home­made Thin Mints on Pin­ter­est, I looked at it not as a way to avoid shelling out the $3.50 per box, but as a link year-round to happy child­hood memories.

And I’m happy to report that even while being decep­tively sim­ple to put together the cook­ies turned out great.

(My cook­ies didn’t end up as pretty, though, as the ones on the Top With Cin­na­mon blog, which is where the recipe comes from, but I doubt any of my food could. Check out the food pho­tog­ra­phy on that site. Stunning.)

One tip: Employ the Alton Brown method for melt­ing choco­late. Instead of using a dou­ble boiler on the stove­top, put a heat­ing pad in a large bowl and then put your bowl of choco­late on top of that. Crank up the heat­ing pad to high, and stir the choco­late fre­quently. It takes longer to melt, but since water is taken out of the equa­tion, the odds of the choco­late seiz­ing up are slim to none.

One more tip: Take the fab­ric sleeve off of your heat­ing pad while doing this so you don’t stain it. (Learned that the hard way.)

I hope to make these again soon, along with a recipe I recently found on Pin­ter­est for Samoas, my favorite Girl Scout cookie.

Home­made Thin Mints

From: Top With Cinnamon

Ingre­di­ents:

• 16 to 20 Oreo cookies
• 7 to 10 ounces semi­sweet or bit­ter­sweet chocolate
• 1 tea­spoon mint extract

Direc­tions:

1. Twist the Oreos to sep­a­rate them, and scrape off the cream filling.
2. Melt the choco­late, and then stir in the mint extract.
3. Dip an Oreo half in the melted choco­late, turn to coat using a fork.
4. Use the fork to remove the Oreo from the choco­late, tap it on the edge of the bowl a few times (to let excess choco­late drip off) and trans­fer to a lined cookie sheet.
5. Leave at room tem­per­a­ture until set.

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