Double chocolate mint poppet cookies

Cookies are back

Who remembers Poppets?  These are a sweet from my childhood, mini mint cremes covered in dark chocolate.  Delicious.  My fondest memory is buying these in the cinema before a film, managing to spill them down the seat/in my lap/on the floor and being gutted that it was dark and I couldn’t see to rescue them!

Up until last week, I had no idea that they still made them, until I took a dangerous walk down the sweets aisle of our supermarket.  This walk has got me into trouble before and I’m sure it will again!  I immediately thought that they would work in a dark chocolate chip cookie, adding a minty kick.  Chocolate and mint is one of my favourite combinations

These cookies are adapted from a favourite recipe of late, my Chocolate Caramel Cookies.  In order to give them the double chocolate element, 30g of the flour was replaced with good quality cocoa.  It’s really worth buying good quality (even though it is more expensive).  I use Green&Blacks, who also make fantastic chocolate (milk chocolate bar with sea salt?  Genius).  You can probably see from the photos that the cookies baked up higher than the recipe they are based on, this is in part due to the long chilling of the dough and also because these cookies have less large pieces of ‘stuff’ in them, which means the dough can hold them better, whilst still staying puffy.  Taking the cookies out whilst looking underdone also adds to their chewiness, so make sure they have no more than 9 minutes in the oven, as they will firm up on the tray.

The mint poppets are pretty strong in mint flavour, which is why I chose not to add any peppermint extract, although of course you could choose too if you wish  I found with my After Eight Cookies that the mint flavour was slightly too strong after adding the peppermint extract.  Another great thing about the poppets is they melt slightly whilst baking, which just adds to the general gooeyness

Ingredients (makes 12-14 cookies):

• 125g soft unsalted butter
• 100g dark brown sugar
• 75g light brown sugar
• 50g caster sugar (superfine)
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 195g plain flour
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 50g milk chocolate chips
• 50g dark chocolate chips
• 100g mint poppets (or alternative)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4.  Line 2 baking trays with baking paper or liner.
2. Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.  Beat in the egg.  Mix in the flour, cocoa, bicarb, baking powder and salt.  Fold in the chocolate chips and poppets..  Chill the dough at this stage for at least 2 hours (I chill mine overnight)
3. Roll into golfball sized balls and place on the baking tray (leaving some space inbetween), Bake for 8-9 minutes (no longer).
4. Leave to firm up on the baking tray for at least 5 minutes and then cool on a rack.

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