My mind percolated about making cookies that would integrate yellow cake mix, mini chocolate chips, mint extract, and blue food coloring. This cooky should resemble mint chocolate chip ice cream. I became curious about some of my ingredients.
Shelf life of food coloring? Shelf life of mint extract? What kind of mint is in my extract? Difference between peppermint and spearmint? Difference between peppermint oil and peppermint extract? How much extract to use? How much food coloring? Use blue instead of green? Amount of chocolate chips?
Shelf Life of Food Coloring
"Does Food Coloring Go Bad? How Long Does Food Coloring Last?" answers, "shelf life of food coloring is almost indefinite. Food coloring does not have raw ingredients in them that can go bad."
Shelf life of Mint Extract
"MINT EXTRACT, PURE, COMMERCIALLY BOTTLED — UNOPENED OR OPENED" answers, "Properly stored, mint extract will generally stay at best quality for about 3 to 4 years."
I'd written my "Minty Choco Chip Pudding" recipe article awhile back, so I wondered about the extract's safety and potency. Still Tasty site's info:
How can you tell if mint extract is still good? Mint extract typically loses flavor over time - if the extract develops an off odor, flavor or appearance, it should be discarded.
I did a sniff test after noting that the fluid was transparent. Yup, strongly minty!
Peppermint, Spearmint, Oils, Extracts
For this article, I'm emphasizing more about the cookies than mint. Visit "Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts" for sections where I contrast peppermint vs spearmint, and peppermint oil vs extract. BTW, my bottle of "McCormick® Pure Mint Extract" lists both spearmint and peppermint oils, along with water and 89% alcohol.
Ideas for the Cooky Recipe Extract, Food Coloring
A recent discussion with a friend about mint chocolate cookies spurred me to consider making a batch. A little uncertainty about seeing obvious doneness for chocolate cooky dough got me to thinking of using a lighter-color cake mix. Also, I thought the cookies might look kinda cute if they resembled colors in mint chocolate chip ice cream. Several sources gave me enough ideas about amount of mint and food coloring, and eventually, amount of chocolate chips.
I searched in my blog for mint and found Minty Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies and Minty Choco Chip Pudding, both from 2014.
The cooky recipe is similar to the spearymintal cookies, except for different means of mint flavor, kinds of chips, and cake mix flavor. At that time, I used a pastry cutter for mixing.
The pudding recipe uses both extract and food coloring. I had referred to page 20 of the Cuisinart Instruction Booklet (for soft-serve ice cream maker) for mint ice cream (ingredients: 30 ounces). The pudding ingredients weighed 19 1/2 ounces. The ice cream called for one teaspoon of extract. I hedged my bet and used half the amount for the pudding. Turned out to be the right decision. I had used green coloring; would use blue another time.
"Addictive Double Chocolate Mint Cookies" calls for 1 teaspoon mint extract to make a batch of 36 cookies. I decided I needed to calculate the dough weight (29 ounces), although I consider the recipe to fussy for my taste.
"McCormick® Pure Mint Extract" intrigued me with "Mint Brownies: Prepare and bake 1 package (21 ounces) brownie mix as directed, stirring 1/2 teaspoon extract into batter." One-half teaspoon! Now I needed to find out what recipe with added ingredients would weigh that would warrant a seemingly teeny amount of extract. I found an 18-ounce box fudge recipe that called for 3 T water, 1/2 cup of oil, and 2 eggs. OK, powder amount is close enough. The added ingredients would add about another 9 ounces. So, one half teaspoon of extract for 29 ounces of dough.
Gauging Appropriate Amount of Chocolate Chips
I usually use regular-size chips, commonly packaged for 12 ounces each bag. I wanted to try mini-chips. OK, so mini-chips packages weigh less, and cost about $2.50. Seems the smallness gives the taste buds pretty good bangs for buck. Anyway, the recipe for "Original NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Mini Morsel Cookies" calls for a 10-ounce package of mini chocolate chips. The weight for flour, sugars, butter, and eggs totaled 31 ounces. I concluded the entire pack of chips was a reasonable amount for my spearymintal cookies.
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 2, Nose 4 Mints N Chips
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 3, Spearymintal Choco Chip Cookies
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 4, Choco Unadorned/Coated Minty Cookies
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 5, Choco Minty Sandwich Cookies
2 comments:
When it comes to mint and wintergreen too, the Grateful Dead had it right saying, "too much of everything is just enough".
Heh, more recent saying--"Too much and never enough". Hmm, I don't think I've heard about wintergreen as often as I've heard of spearmint and peppermint.
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