Thin Mint Blondies

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not Irish (I guess) but it is fun to make some sort of St. Patrick’s inspired recipe at this time of year. I had narrowed down my choices to two different cookies, and it was really hard to decide what to make. Do I make something with Irish Cream liqueur or a mint cookie with Girl Scout cookies as a main component? In the end, since I had the Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies ready to go, I decided on the Thin Mint Blondies.

These cookies aren’t tricky to make at all, just a little bit of chopping and working with very thick dough. This recipe called for Andes Mint Baking Chips, which is something that I sometimes have on hand. They seem to be easiest to find around the holidays, which is tricky this time of year. I purchased some Andes Mints and chopped them up, which worked great. I imagine that Andes Mint Chips are simply chopped Andes Mints, but I’ll go along with their illusion.

The original recipe bad you bake these blondies for about 20 minutes, and mine weren’t even close to done after that amount of time. I ended up baking mine for about 30 minutes, and the cookies are baked but still soft. The Thin Mint cookies don’t chop very cleanly, but that’s ok. I chilled these bars before cutting, and they were so good when they were chilled. Don’t get me wrong, they are good at room temperature as well. These cookies are very good-the chocolate mint flavor can’t be beat. Yeah, they don’t cut as cleanly as I’d like, but that just means the Thin Mint cookies fall off and you can eat those separately.

Thin Mint Blondies
1 cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1-1/3 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 sleeve Thin Mint Cookies, cut in quarters
½ cup Andes Mint Baking Chips/chopped Andes Mints

1/3 cup Andes Mint Baking Chips/chopped Andes Mints
1 sleeve Thin Mint Cookies, cut in half

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Beat on medium until the light. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then stir in the vanilla. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour and salt. Stir in the Andes mints and chopped Thin Mint cookies. Spread the batter into the prepared pan. The dough will be thick, and you may need to use wetted hands to help spread the dough.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until set and the bars begin to brown along the edges.

As soon as the bars come out of the oven, sprinkle with the chopped Andes Mints and allow them to set for one minute. Top the bars with the remaining Thin Mint cookies, pressing down slightly. Allow the bars to cool before cutting into bars.

Recipe from Sweet Recipeas