Mint & Chocolate Grasshopper Cookies

With yesterday being Canada Day, I’m feeling a little reminiscent.  Being from the Canadian Prairies, I love hot, dry weather, the endless skyline, and the wide, open fields.  However, one of the things that I don’t miss about the prairies are grasshoppers…unless of course, they are in the form of a cookie!  Grasshopper cookies take me back to my childhood and the first time I ever tried one.

The first time I tried a grasshopper cookie was when they first came out in our area.  The crunchie chocolate cookies, between which was perfectly sandwiched an even disk of mint cream filling.  Mint and chocolate were just meant to be coupled!

Now, as much as I enjoyed those, I always believe homemade cookies are so much better!  This year I’ve decided to try to create my own version of the much-loved grasshopper cookies so that I can share them with my family.  This my choice for this month’s summer theme for #FillTheCookieJar

To make the cookie base, I’ve used our recipe for triple chocolate chip cookies.  Why mess with new recipes when you already have a family favourite?  We’ve also used this recipe for ice cream sandwiches.

Our minty cream filling was used by mixing:

• 1/4 cup softened butter
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 teaspoon mint extract
• natural green food colouring

Cream the butter and then add the rest of the ingredients.  Add more icing sugar or milk until you get the right consistency.

A word of warning.  The recipe was supposed to work – but I was trying to make these on the hottest day of the year so far, mixed with almost 80% humidity…and it didn’t quite work for me.

It could have been because I had a new bottle of food colouring and instead of green it was florescent yellow so I had to add blue to it, thus making the mix too runny.  So I just kept adding more icing sugar to the mix, which made it too sweet for my liking on this occasion. Or it could be that I used an olive spread instead of butter due to dairy allergies…

Or maybe it was ‘just one of those days’!

However, in the end, the grasshopper cookies did taste delicious, and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?

I used a piping bag to pipe the icing onto some of the cookies before sandwiching them.  I had tried to use a spoon and a knife, but those just kept lifting up cookie crumbs so I (almost) found the piping bag easier to use.

(I won’t mention that I blew out my umpteenth piping bag all over the counter top).

Yep, just one of those days.

The icing looked lovely in a rosette on the top of the cookies, so I did some just like that, too.

Of course, being me, I also sprinkled some iridescent edible glitter on the tops as well.  I didn’t get to use it for Kallista’s birthday cake and it was calling out to me…and who can resist sparkles?

So after a few disasters along the way, my photos aren’t doing the grasshopper cookies justice, but believe me, they are GREAT!

I’ve put some of our triple chocolate cookies into the freezer so we can pull them out another day when we are craving a little something.  All we need to do then is mix up a little more icing (or break down and use the no-fuss bought variety) and sit back and enjoy.

I’m curious…what do you do when you are having ‘one of those days? I’d love to hear in the comments below before I eat the entire batch of cookies and icing!