Preparations

• Put your after dinner mints (or any other candy you’d like to use for the filling) into the freezer. This will prevent it from melting before the cookie dough is baked through, which would cause it to leak out.
• The rest of your ingredients should be at room temperature. Though the butter doesn’t matter much, as it gets browned anyway.
• Line your sheet pans with baking parchment. For any greasy bakes like cookies or buttery biscuits, parchment is better than silicone non-stick pads, as it absorbs any potentially leaking fat instead of puddling around the cookies, creating a greasy feel.
• If you want to bake your cookies right after shaping, you can do that.
• Alternatively you can allow them to ferment overnight or up to 3 days in the fridge and they will only get better.
• For any slight gluten intolerance, 48 hours of slow fermentation in the fridge will remove most of the gluten and make these mint chocolate cookies easier to digest. If you are celiac, please swap the flour and sourdough discard as described in the substitutions.
• Get all your ingredients ready and put the dark chocolate chips/chopped chocolate into a heat proof bowl.

Prepare The Chocolate Mint Dough

• Browning The Butter and Melting The Chocolate
• In a saucepan, melt your butter over medium high heat until it starts to wildly bubble. Stir the whole time, to get even browning. A silicone spatula is best, as it gets all those lovely brown bits from the bottom of the pan.
• When the bubble sizes and sounds start to change, lower the heat to medium low and keep stirring until it smells deliciously nutty and has a deep amber brown. Immediately transfer to your heat proof bowl and allow to cool for 1-2 minutes (just so it doesn’t half fry the chocolate but is still hot enough to melt it).
• Add the dark chocolate, let it sit for 2 minutes, then stir until it’s all melted and creamy.

Mix in Sugar and Eggs

• Once the chocolate is melted, both sugars, vanilla extract, mint extract and the honey can go in. Whisk until well combined and the sugar is dissolved a little.
• Because we are dealing with heavy melted chocolate, there won’t be any fluffing of butter and sugar needed, which makes this a very simple and quick recipe.
• Now add the egg and egg yolks. In theory one at a time is best, but I can confirm adding all at once (accidentally) works just fine. Mix them in until you have a smooth batter.

Whisk In The Protein and Sourdough Discard

• Start with the dry protein powder, as it dissolves best in the liquid ingredients. Mix until no lumps are left.
• Then add the sourdough discard and gently stir it in.

Add The Dry Ingredients

• Either right in your large mixing bowl or in a smaller separate bowl, add the baking soda and salt to your flour and give it a stir, so the three are well combined.
• Now switch to a spatula and gently fold your flour mix into the chocolate-mint mass. Just until no dry flour lumps are left. Don’t overmix or your cookies might come out tough and chewy due to too much gluten developing.

Portion The Chocolate Dough

• I would recommend shaping your cookies right away while the chocolate in the dough is still soft. If you put it in the fridge first, it will get very firm and hard to portion.
• For the easiest workflow, portion the dough first, using a large cookie scoop. The size of cookie will depend largely on your after dinner mints. Mine were round and about 1in/2 cm wide, so they fit perfectly into the large cookie scoop portions.
• Once all are portioned, get your after dinner mints out of the freezer. For round ones no extra step is needed. If you are using After Eight, the arguably most common mints, I’d recommend breaking them into 4 squares, then stack, for the easiest fit.

Fill Your Triple Mint Chocolate Protein Cookies

• Now grab a portion of the dough and flatten it in your palm. Due to all the cocoa butter from the chocolate they should be reasonably non-stick. And sure a little mess while baking is to be expected.
• Pop the mint into the center, then close the cookie dough over it. Turn the portion over, seam side down on your palm, and, cupping your other hand over it, move in rapid little circles until you have a relatively round cookie shape.
• Transfer to the parchment lined sheet pan and tap gently to flatten it just a little bit. Space them about 1in/2 cm apart. 6 per sheet work fine. They spread a little, but not as much as chocolate chip cookies, where the spreading is part of the plan.

Bake Or Store In The Fridge

• At this point your can either bake your cookies right away or allow them to ferment in the fridge for up to 3 days. Their flavor will deepen, and the gluten will be lowered in this time, leading to all the benefits from the sourdough.
• To bake, preheat your oven to 350°F/175°C.
• Bake them at the center of your oven for 10-14 minutes or until the tops start to crack and look set.
• It’s fine if they are a bit underbaked in the center, as they will continue to set while cooling.
• Allow to cool still on the sheet pan for about 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Keep the baking parchment. We still need it.
• You can either enjoy them as they are, maybe slightly warm, with the filling oozing out, with a nice glass of cold milk (or mint hot chocolate for that matter, just to complete the topic!) or take them over the top of mint-chocoholic dreams in the next step.

The Peppermint Bark Coating

• Make sure the cookies are completely cooled before coating them, otherwise your precious white chocolate will just run off them.
• Grab your still parchment paper lined sheet pans and top them with wire racks if possible. This will allow the surplus white chocolate to drip off them instead of forming puddles.

Crush The Candy Canes

• Crush your candy canes. I snapped them into pieces which I put into a strong freezer bag (to prevent any bursting candy cane accidents) then smashed the bunch with my rolling pin on a wooden board.
• Mind you, the canes are very hard, so be sure you don’t use your prettiest board, as they may leave marks. Same goes for the rolling pin. Mine is hardwood and didn’t mind, but an old one made from softer wood had dents after a similar smashing. The bottom of a stainless steel pan is a great tool too.
• You are aiming for a mix of finer and coarser pieces, so you can mix them up when sprinkling.

Melt The White Chocolate

• In a microwave save bowl or in a double boiler, mix the white chocolate chips (or chopped bars) with the coconut oil. Just dollop it in, it’ll be fine.
• On the medium setting of your microwave (mine is 600 watt), gently melt the white chocolate in 30 second bursts, stirring between each.
• If you never melted white chocolate: It reacts quite different than dark, in that the melting temperature is much lower, and it seizes quicker if it gets too hot. Hence the lower temperature and short bursts. I Found the Callebaut chips are easier to handle when melting than shop bought bars and get a bit thinner, making it better for dipping. But both will work.

Dip And Decorate Your Triple Mint Choc Cookies

• Now dip one half of each cookie with the top into the white chocolate (careful, they are still fairly soft. I nearly lost one of mine in it!) then transfer to the wire racks to set.
• Sprinkle with the crushed candy canes and allow to set for a few hours.

Admire your handywork, then bit into one, being transported to mint-chocolate heaven!