
These cookies are truly appropriately named. When I make these minty, crunchy on the outside, chewy on in the inside puffs of delicious minty goodness with mini chocolate chips inside, they are not forgotten. The kids find them and poof! gone.
Note in the caption above these aren’t quick to make. Depending on temperature, they take 1.5 to 5 hrs or more. The original recipe for these came from my grandma and she always left them in the oven overnight, at least 5 hours. You don’t actually leave the oven on overnight tho; you preheat it, put the cookies in, and turn it off.
If you’re a total chocoholic, you could take these and dip them in melted chocolate when they’re done, either using “melting chocolate” from the store, or by taking a package of chocolate chips and melting 3/4 of it with about 1 T shortening, then adding in the rest of the chocolate chips and stirring ’til melted.
Remember when beating the egg whites to beat them until stiff. The little tips shouldn’t curl over. If you watch The Great British Baking Show (or in the UK, The Great British Bake Off), you’ll see contestants hold their bowl of egg whites over their head to test if they’re stiff. Don’t overbeat them tho; they should remain glossy looking, not dry. Once you’re noticing they’re almost there, it’s probably only a minute or 2 more.

Ingredients
- 2 egg whites from large eggs
- 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
- dash salt
- 3/4 c. (150 g) white, granulated, sugar (not confectioner’s)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (Make sure it’s gluten-free, corn-free, etc. See Note below.)
- 1 tsp green creme de menthe or 1/4-1/2 tsp mint extract and a few drops of green food coloring
- About 1/2-3/4 pkg Enjoy Life miniature chocolate chips, to taste
Note on vanilla extract: I make my own or use one by McCormick that no longer has corn syrup. To make my own, I heat 1 c. (about 235 g or ml) potato vodka and put it in a bottle, then add 8 split vanilla beans. You can use your choice of spirits; from what I understand, many work. After it’s cooled, I add another cup of potato vodka, cap it off, and wait. Shake lightly periodically, and leave it for a couple of months. So delicious…
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C); place oven rack in the middle. (See note below for getting these done more quickly.)
- Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Prep ingredients, breaking egg whites into a mixing bowl and having everything else measured and at the ready.
- Beat egg whites a minute or so on medium speed, then add cream of tartar and a dash of salt. (If you have a KitchenAid mixer, use the wire whisk, speed 3 or 4 to start.)
- Continue beating egg whites until stiff. (Increase mixer speed to medium high, and then high. On the KitchenAid, it would be speed 6 for most of the time, ending on 8.)
- SLOWLY add sugar. Keeping my mixer at medium speed (4), I just tilt my bowl with sugar on the mixing bowl and keep it in a thin stream until empty; many put the sugar in 1 Tbsp at a time until they’ve added it all.
- Add vanilla and creme de menthe; mix briefly until incorporated.
- Fold in mini chocolate chips. (I use the wire whisk on the lowest speed on the mixer.)
- Dip out onto lined cookie sheet using a metal spoon (I just use a cereal spoon.) or you can get fancy and pipe it out into fun shapes.
- Place in the oven and turn the oven off.
- Leave 5+ hours without opening the oven door.
- Enjoy!
Note on speeding these up: You can use the lowest temperature of the oven and leave on for about 1.5 hrs. Watch carefully tho; you don’t want browned cookies (tho they’ll probably still get ate with joy :). I’ve even played around with leaving at 350 F a few minutes, then turning it down around 270 F (130 C) for 30 minutes, and then down all the way to try and speed them up more. They definitely do best with the 1.5 or 5 hr version tho. If you’ve planned them out, do the 5 hr; then they’re just fix them and forget them if you can 🙂


Gone, but not forgotten…