Chocolate Mint St. Patrick’s Day Sandwich Cookies- With Video!

https://youtu.be/xO0S2Dxi51E

Find your sweet pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow with these scrumptious chocolate mint cookies! Bring on the luck of the Irish with a big plateful of four leaf clovers and shamrocks; they’re perfect little party cookies.

The basic recipe is simple and oh so delicious.

To make these use our Shamrock, Four Leaf Clover and Rainbow Pot O’ Gold Disks from the St. Patrick’s Day Disk Set. They’re available on Amazon or our impressbakeware.com website.

In this recipe a mint butter spritz cookie is combined with a deep chocolate mint stuffing to make thick sandwich cookies.

The chocolate filling also makes the pots that hold the gold.

Here’s the cookie dough/filling recipe and some photos of the pressed cookies and baked results.

Watch the video for dough tips, pressing techniques and troubleshooting, and decorating ideas!

Mint Butter Spritz

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (not melted)

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

2 teaspoons peppermint extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

GEL food coloring (liquid changes dough consistency too much)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Combine the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside. Cream the butter very well with an electric mixer on its highest setting. Then add the powdered sugar and cream again until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and mint extracts and mix thoroughly. Add the flour mixture and mix until all ingredients are evenly combined, but do not over-mix as that can make spritz dough too stiff.

Color your dough with gel food coloring as liquid can change your dough consistency. Use whatever green you like; I used Kelly green and leaf green. If you’re doing just one color you can use your mixer, but if you’re using more than one it’s easier to just mix it in by hand. I like to use my hands to knead the color in. It’s like playing with play dough and kind of therapeutic!

Load the dough into your press. I like to pack it in a little at a time, using the back of a spoon to remove any air bubbles. Uneven pressure in the barrel can cause shapes to come out bigger on one side or missing pieces.

Press onto clean, un-greased cookie sheets using a consistent rhythm. If your dough isn’t pressing well, troubleshoot by adding flour (a tablespoon at a time) to overly soft or sticky dough, or water (a tablespoon at a time) to overly stiff dough.

This should be a very easy-to-press dough. It’s not uncommon for the first few shapes to come out mis-shapen or have trouble sticking. Pressure has to build up in the barrel for the cookies to come out consistently.

Once you’ve got a good shape, try to keep a consistent rhythm. If they’re not pressing well, try extruding a cookie or two into the air, wiping it away and tossing it back in the bowl, as this re-sets the pressure. It usually works!

Try to keep the shapes on the skinny side, as they will spread a bit in baking!

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 6 to 10 minutes. Check early and often as spritz cookies brown quickly. Let sit 2 or 3 minutes and move to cooking rack. Makes about 70 cookies/35 sandwiches.

With the cookies baked and cooling, make the filling.

Chocolate Mint Sandwich Cookie Filling

4 Tablespoons butter flavor shortening

4 Tablespoons butter

1 cup plus 3 Tablespoons powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder- add more or less to get a good thickness

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Make the filling by creaming the butter and shortening by hand, just until it is smooth. Add the powdered sugar, cocoa powder and extract and keep stirring until completely blended. Keep mixing until you have a stiff cookie stuffing, adding more powdered sugar, cocoa or extract to adjust to a flavor and thickness you like. Remember it’s not supposed to be thin like frosting for a cake, but thick like sandwich cookie filling. You’ll want a consistency you can either pipe on with a decorating bag or apply with a knife. Try not to eat it all as you go!

Sort your shaped cookies by matched-sized pairs, then use a knife or a large round decorating tip and bag to apply the filling to the bottom cookie.

Piping the filling on creates nice clean edges that are pretty and appetizing. I used a decorating bag with a #4 round tip to make a thick wide stripe to outline the cookie. This neat pretty edge will show out the sides and make a clean look. If you use a knife they’ll taste just as good.

Then add some filling to the center.

Gently press on the top cookie.

I like the way the chocolate just peeks out from the cookie edge, creating a chocolate outline.

For the rainbow pot ‘o gold cookies I chose not to sandwich them since the rainbow icing will add enough sweetness.

I used the chocolate mint filling to make the pot a nice rich color and give the cookies a chocolate kick. To smooth the surface after adding the icing, use a slightly damp fingertip to smooth it out.

After adding the chocolate to the pot, add an orange “glue” layer to stick gold sprinkles to. Use a damp fingertip again to smooth and slightly wet the orange surface so the sprinkles will stick better. Tap the cookie to shake off any excess.

Then add rainbows!

I used store bought tubes of colored icing and round writing type tips for decorating the rainbow with simple stripes of color.

The rainbow arcs were pretty easy to pipe on since the ridges of the rainbow were a great guide!

All the bright cheery colors make fun displays. I couldn’t decide if I liked them better on white or blue, grouped this way or that, so I just kept experimenting!

Any way you present them they’ll probably be gone quickly. They’re a little hard to resist.

My daughter came home this weekend from college and was bummed that she missed these. She loves chocolate mint anything. Guess I’ll just have to be a good mom and make another batch.