If you love chocolate + mint, these gluten free chocolate mint chip cookies are for you. As a kid (pre-gluten free days) I loooooved Thin Mints (I was a Girl Scout for ~10 years!) and mint chocolate chip ice cream (still do). I’ve yet to translate this love into a towering gluten free mint chocolate chip layer cake (one day!), but I have made chocolate peppermint shortbread and have wanted to make a chewy bakery style chocolate mint cookie for a while now. Soooooo what better time to recipe test than the winter months right before the holidays! I ended up finding and using the Guittard gluten free mint baking chips (pale green color, green shiny package) and highly recommend them, they worked so well for these cookies flavor and texture wise, but you can use any mint chip or even chop up your fave mint chocolate (Andes mints come to mind, or any mint chocolate bar that you can chop up into chunks!). Heck, you can even chop up candy canes and toss those in and see what happens – it can be really fun to test out a new idea in the baking zone!
Side note: I’m in the midst of baking dozens and dozens of cookies to give to friends and family here in Oxford for the holidays and have very little bandwidth to actually stage and shoot nice photos for this post, so you get some fun phone photos for the SEO and I’ll come back and update with fancy photos later!
Tips for the best gluten free chocolate mint chip cookies!
- Cream the butter + sugars for at LEAST 3 minutes. It’s wild how important this step is and how much your butter and sugar will transform after beating it with an electric mixer for minutes and minutes. It’ll change color (become much lighter), look actually creamy (hence the term), and be a bit fluffy. That’s what you’re going for!
- Use DUTCHED cocoa powder! This means that the unsweetened cocoa has been processed with an alkalizing agent that results in a mellower, earthier (I think chocolatier) flavor, and it’s generally the cocoa I like using when baking. This will get you closer to that velvety, rich dark chocolate mouthfeel! My favorite brand is Droste dutched cocoa powder – it’s a bit tricky to find and I end up usually ordering it online, but it’s soooooo worth it! Guittard also make a great one!
- Chill that dough! I recommend at least 1 hour. If you end up chilling it longer though, be sure to let it rest at room temp for about 30 minutes because it will be too cold/hard at that point and the cookie dough won’t spread as much.
- Don’t overbake those cookies! This is basically the biggest key to getting that chewy center: if you overbake, the center will be just like the edges, crispy and crunchy with no chew. You want the cookie dough to be still soft/look a bit underbaked (they’re safely baked, don’t worry) in the center and as the cookies cool, the center will settle into that glorious chewy bit.
- Let those cookies cool! Because the key is to not bake them to a crisp/cakey disc, the center of your cookies will be very very soft until they cool and set, so let them hang out on the counter (I know, the temptation is real), for at least 15 minutes.
If you’re in the cookie baking spirit, here are some other easy ones! Dark chocolate ginger cookies, chocolate orange cookies, browned butter pecan shortbread, chewy molasses cookies, white chocolate macadamia cookies, white chocolate ube cookies, chewy sprinkle cookies.
Gluten Free Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies
Equipment
- Electric mixer
- Cookie sheets
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
- 1 Cup room temp salted butter 227g
- 1/3 Cup packed light brown sugar 105g
- 1 1/3 Cup white sugar 325g
- 1 large eggs plus one egg yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract 5ml
- 2 tsp mint extract 10ml
- 1 ½ Cup gluten free 1-1 flour mix 230g
- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum 1g
- ¾ Cup unsweetened dutched cocoa powder 90g
- 1 tsp baking soda 8g
- ¾ tsp Salt 4g
- 1 1/2 Cups mint chips (I use the Guittard mint baking chips!) 290g plus a few extra for top (optional)
Instructions
- In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together the room temp butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until lighter and fluffy (3-5 minutes – don't skimp on this step!). Add in the egg plus egg yolk and vanilla and mint extracts and beat until smooth. Add in the flour, unsweetened dutched cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and mix on a low speed until fully combined (it will be sort of stiff but not unworkable). Finally, mix in the mint chips by hand until they're fully distributed. Scoop dough into a smaller bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in the fridge for 1 hour (if you chill it longer, you may need to bring it closer to room temp by leaving it out on the counter for 30mins so it's not too hard).
- Once the cookie dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit (180° C, no fan) and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Then start scooping out the cookie dough and rolling it into 2 inch round balls and place 4-5 balls on the cookie sheet (~3 inches apart) and bake for 10-12 minutes (I do exactly 10 – don't overbake or they will be hard, dry, and crumbly). Let cookies cool COMPLETELY before removing from the cookie sheet (15-20 minutes) – they will be chewy in the center and crispy on the edges!
Tag @sisterssansgluten on Instagram if you snap a photo of your cookies!
Food photography and styling by Amelia Farber (these were taken on the fly – check back for professional photos later!)
