Homemade Thin Mint-Inspired Cookies

I've made this recipe twice (in fact, I think it's the only F52 recipe I've made twice) and had no problem. With no egg, the dough is pretty dry and it takes a good deal more mixing than other cookies- maybe that was your problem. Also, these aren't refrigerator cookies- the dough is meant to be rolled out and cut with cookie cutters.

Common causes of too much spread:
1. Butter wrong temperature. A pet peeve is the ubiquitous instruction for using "room temperature" butter. That's problematic on so many levels. There's no standard for "room temperature". Most commonly, butter should be at a temperature so it gives under gentle pressure (but that's subjective too), but still hold its shape. If it's the consistency of mayonnaise, it's too warm. But in shortbread, butter should be consistency of mayonnaise. In other cookie applications, butter should be melted...aargh! Butter temperature is so frustrating.
2. Too much sugar. Sugar is hygroscopic (attracts moisture from environment); heat causes it to release the moisture it soaked up. So how could there be too much sugar! When recipes are based on volume instead of weight, it's almost a guarantee that the ratios will skewed. Volume measurements sets the baker up for failure. There's no agreement in volume. Nancy Baggett, cookie cookbook author, instructs bakers to use the dip method. Others, like Julia Childs, promoted the spoon and sweep. Metric weight is the most consistent and accurate way to measure.
3. Under measured flour...again volume measurements are the culprit. You can measure a zillion cups of flour, and there will be variations in volume each time. When the ratios of flour to fat and sugar are skewed, the recipe fails.
4. Oven temperature too high. It's a chain reaction. High heat causes the butter to melt too fast. Melting butter spreads dough before it sets.
5. Crumbling cookie is usually a creaming issue. Most common creaming issues are butter too cold, so too dense to incorporate air into butter; butter too warm, so collapses and releases air. But incorrect flour ratio is also another common cause.

Spreading cookies are almost inevitably the result of too little flour/fat; if only a few spread, it's improper mixing (resulting in some cookies, or parts of them, having different ratios). Like so many others, I've cooked a million cookies by volume measurement, and had no problems- you just have to be consistent in how you measure it. Weight isn't infallible either- the moisture content, and thus the weight, will vary with the climate. I usually use butter straight from the refrigerator- again no problems with a good stand mixer. At any rate, these cookies barely budged in the oven- they even come out with sharp edges.

You can add a bit of mild-flavored vegetable oil to the chocolate to thin it a bit for a better dipping/coating consistency. You can find tips on the web for melting chocolate and dipping cookies. Wishing you better results next time!

This step sounded like trouble to me, but it went without a hitch. I used Lindt 70% chocolate; I melted it in a double boiler, and left it over the hot water (but off the heat) while working with it. You might have to flip the last few cookies as the pool of chocolate gets shallow, but I had about 2oz. left over, which made a nice little chocolate bar. You might want to temper it if you're feeling fancy, but really not necessary.

Well, they wouldn't be thin mints then. I think this amount of almond extract would be pretty overpowering, it's a very strong flavor. You'd probably do better to start with an almond cookie recipe (with ground almonds)- you can dip anything in chocolate.

You can easily substitute one extract for another. Almond and chocolate is a classic combination. Since the peppermint and almond both strong flavors, you use a 1:1 substitution. And too, extracts are essential oils suspended in an alcohol base. Alcohol is volatile. When exposed to heat, the alcohol evaporates long with the flavor and aroma molecules. Two teaspoons may seem like a lot of extract, but evaporation and other balancing flavors will come into play here.

To be conservative, you can add half the amount, then taste the dough. Add more if you like. Since there's no egg, it's safe to taste the dough. Remember, some flavor and aroma will be lost in baking.