Chocolate Mint Cookies

If you are hosting or attending a cookie exchange this holiday season, you MUST make these cookies. This recipe was gifted to me by a former co-worker's wife. The cookies are chocolaty, soft, and chewy with just the right amount of mint.

I'm not even a big mint fan, but I can sit down and eat cookie, after cookie, after cookie. My kids jumped for joy when I told them I was making the chocolate mint cookies.
Recipe:

3/4 cup of butter

1 1/2 cups of dark brown sugar

2 Tablespoons of water

2 cups of chocolate chips

2 eggs

1/4 teaspoon of salt (recipe says 1/2 t, but I always cut the salt)

1 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda

3 cups of all-purpose flour (recipe says 2 1/2 cups, but I bake at high altitude)

In a small sauce pan over low heat, stir butter, sugar and water until butter is melted. Add chocolate chips. When the chocolate chips are melted, remove from heat:
Pour melted mixture into a mixing bowl to cool for 10 minutes:
Beat two eggs into the chocolate mixture. Then add salt, baking soda and flour.
Mix it in the Kitchen Aid:
Now chill your dough for an hour:
Roll your chilled dough into balls and place 2" apart on a lined cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes at 350F. 8 minutes..not 7...not 6...not 10...EIGHT. They may not look done, but they are done and you don't want to over bake and take away the chewiness.
For decorating, you'll need mint candy wafers (look for them at a craft store), chocolate sprinkles and...as I was searching my sprinkle stash, I pulled out my new Wilton Holly Mix (holly leaves & berries) sprinkles from the cabinet.

As soon as you remove the cookies from the oven and transfer the cookies to a cooling rack, gently press a candy mint wafer into the center of the warm cookie. The candy wafer will begin to melt. When the top of the wafer is shiny, the candy is melted and you can spread the candy with a spatula. Sprinkle with green colored sugar and/or chocolate sprinkles.

Or, you can skip spreading the candy and gently press holly leaves and berries in the melted candy wafer for a really pretty finished look:

You must re-gift this recipe!