Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies

I mentioned in the peppermint bark post that I would be using it in some cookies. I didn't have a recipe for the cookies I wanted to make but I knew what I wanted, a chocolate chocolate chip cookie using peppermint bark instead of chocolate chips. 

While I am all for playing with recipes and tweaking them to see what you get and how great you can make them, I don't do well with baking failures. So Instead of playing with a recipe I scoured the internet looking for a good chocolate cookie that I could use but nothing looked good enough. Then I came across 101cookbooks and they have a fabulous recipe for Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies. 

Yields approx.: 48 cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups Flour

1 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp Salt

1 cup  Butter, softened

2 cups sugar

3 Eggs

1 tbs Vanilla

2 cups peppermint bark, roughly chopped  

Optional crushed candy canes

Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. 

In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, be sure to scrap down the sides of the bowl a few times. Then stir in the vanilla.  Add the dry ingredients in increments, stirring between each addition.  Stir in the peppermint bark by hand until it is evenly incorporated. 


Reserve a bit of the bark to sprinkle on top of the cookies before you pop them into the oven. And if you want, crush up a few candy canes to sprinkle on top for some extra color once you take the cookies out of the oven.

Using a sorbet scoop or a table spoon, scoop onto baking sheets 1 inches apart and bake @ 375º for about 10 - 14 minutes. The recipe says that the cookies will flatten out but mine didn't so what I did was dust the bottom of a glass with some cocoa powder and press the cookies down.  Cool the cookies on the cookie sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. While they are still a little hot, sprinkle with the optional crushed candy canes. 

Kay