These things are outrageous! Seriously. You know about peanut butter blossoms, right? They might be one of my favorite cookies. With that in mind I’ve been thinking about chocolate drops with peppermint cookies. Sounds yummy, right? I searched my cook books and the Internet and couldn’t find a recipe for this idea, so I made my own! Starting with a chocolaty chocolate cookie, we decided to double the recipe and add some dark chocolate and mint. So good I can’t leave them on my counter for long! Today they were either packed in a box destined for the other side of the world, or packed in the freezer for another day when there are more people around to help me eat them! If you will not be on the receiving end of the aforementioned box or at my house for Christmas I’d highly recommend you make these yourself. Have I mentioned they are delicious?!

Ingredients
* 2 cup butter, softened
* 3 cups white sugar
* 4 eggs
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 2 teaspoons peppermint extract
* 4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 1/3 cup Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder
* 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
* 2 10oz bags Hershey’s Peppermint Kisses

Directions
* In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and extracts until light and fluffy.
* Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended.
* Mix in the chocolate chips.
* Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls (or a small cookie scoop) onto parchment paper (or ungreased) cookie sheets.
* Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in a 350° preheated oven, or just until set.
* When they first come out of the oven gently press a Peppermint Kiss into the center of each.
* Cool slightly on the cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
I ended up with 123 cookies!

* I’m sure there is lots of room to experiment here. Perhaps KAF Burgundy chunks instead of the chocolate chips, tweaks on extract proportions, etc. Feel free to play around. I don’t think I’ll make them often enough to fine tune the recipe. That would not be good for my waistline!

In case you were wondering, this is how we cook around here. It’s a wonder anything ever gets done.

This, however, is a favorite job that always gets done. Eagerly. With a bit of sampling along the way.

Apparently I didn’t actually take a good picture of the cookies. How unlike me. The little image above was cropped from this one. It will suffice, but I prefer this one with his smiling face :)