Reinventing Thin Mints!

I'm sure many of us are guilty of buying a few boxes of Girl Scout cookies and storing them in the cabinet. After breaking into the box and devouring one sleeve, we find the rest of the box goes back in the cabinet and forgotten (well, at least until that late night snack). But I found a great new recipe to put those delicious girl scout cookies to use!

Thin Mint Cupcakes

You can either use a chocolate cake mix like Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker, or make a mix from scratch! Here's one of my favorite never fail chocolate cake recipes.

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake Recipe:

2 cups sugar

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup HERSHEY's Cocoa

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water 

 Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Place cupcake liners in your cupcake sheet

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared liners.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. 

4. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely before frosting. 

Now for the Thin Mint Frosting!

I found this delicious recipe from a link on Pinterest and loved the way it came out.

Recipe:

1 sleeve of Thin Mint Cookies

1 cup of butter at room temp (2 sticks)

4-5 cups of confectionary sugar

2-3 tablespoons of whole milk

1/2 teaspoon of mint extract

Green Food Coloring

Directions:

First, place the sleeve of cookies into a food processor and pulse until the cookies are broken into small crumbs. Next, cream the butter until smooth and slowly add confectionary sugar. Continue to add the sugar and add another teaspoon of milk once it starts to get too stiff. Make sure to stop the mixer in between and wipe down the sides of the bowl. Keep adding together ingredients simultaneously until smooth. Next step, add the mint extract. Now tint the frosting with just a hint of green food coloring! After that, slowly add in the cookie crumbs just until mixed.

Make sure you are satisfied with the consistency of your frosting. Don't be afraid to test it and see if its too stiff or too runny. If too stiff, add more milk. If too thin, add some more confectionary sugar. When making homemade frosting, its okay to go off the given recipe. Just continually test until its to your liking! 

Now, all you need to do is frost the cupcakes! I have a great icing bag with a variety of tips for this process. Make sure if you decide to use a smaller tip for this recipe, that you pulse your thin mint cookies into very small crumbs. If the chunks are too big, you will run into the problem of getting them stuck in the tip. 

For an extra garnish, stick half a thin mint on top of the frosting. And that's it! Your left with a delicious minty cupcake. A perfect dessert for any meal (or replacement of that late night snack). Enjoy! xo