Cooking with Ben: Peppermint Cookies

Ben is helping out in the kitchen today. He really enjoys helping Papa bake. We're making some chocolate and peppermint Christmas cookies; they are chewy in the middle and have bit of peppermint candies in them that melt a little when you bake them. First Ben helps to make the chocolate dough (see the recipe below), and then we refrigerate it over night. Next, Ben rolls the chilled dough into balls and dips the top end in crushed peppermint candies: Jerry helped to crush the candies!

Then Papa puts the cookies into the hot oven; Ben only watches because he's too little to open and close the oven. Yummy, they smell delicious, and Jerry keeps popping his head around the corner of the kitchen...he loves cookies!

 Then we take the cookies out and let them cool because cooling them helps to keep their round shape.

Finally, baker Ben poses with a tall stack of the finished cookies that we will share with family and friends.

Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies
yield: about 3 dozen
from Everyday Food, Dec. 2005

1.5 cups flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
4 ounces milk chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1.5 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon pure peppermint extract
3 large eggs
45 round swirled peppermint candies, coarsely chopped (you can put candies into a sturdy plastic bag and carefully smash with a hammer)

Preheat oven to 325 F.  Whisk together flour, cocoa, soda and salt; set aside. Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof mixer bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Remove chocolate from stove, and add sugar, extracts, and eggs; mix on medium-low speed until combined.  Pour chocolate mixture into flour mixture. Stir in one-third of the chopped candies. Refrigerate dough until firm, at least 30 minutes.  Rolled chilled dough into balls, then dip tops into remaining chopped candy mixture.  Place mounds, candy sides up, on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, about 2 inches apart.  Bake until just set, about 15 minutes.  Let cool on sheets of paper on wire racks.