Name: Easy Brownie Cookies with Mint Icing
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 12 min
Ingredients: ½ cup unsalted butter (room temperature); 1 cup granulated sugar; 2 large eggs; 1½ tsp vanilla extract; 2 cups all purpose flour; ½ cup dark cocoa powder; 1 tsp baking soda; ½ tsp salt; 1 large egg white; 1 cup powdered sugar (sifted); ⅛ tsp vanilla extract; ⅛ tsp mint extract; ⅛ tsp green food coloring

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This weekend, I thought it would be fun to bake more cookies with my little cub. I got all the ingredients pre-measured into bowls and set her stool next to the stand mixer. She hopped up and grabbed her favorite spatula, and together we made up these super easy brownie cookies.

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We popped the roll of dough into the fridge, and I was all set to make up a nice lasagna and have two great recipes to blog about. Do you know what happened?

Hard Times in Nashville (again)

We lost power. Not just us. 130,000 people in Nashville lost power. Ours was out for 27 hours, and that was long enough for our fridge to partially melt three bags of ice. We were lucky to have somewhere to take our deep freezer to plug it in, but not everyone was so lucky.

In fact, as I’m writing this, there are still over 50,000 people without power. There wasn’t a tornado this time, but we still have a town full of damaged roofs, downed trees, and that’s on top of the remaining damage from the tornado that struck downtown in March.

Keep in mind that our city is doing its utmost to keep our COVID-19 spread down, so we’re extending the Stay at Home order again. At least we can say that we’re winning on one front. However, we are all definitely feeling the stress.

Stress Testing Easy Brownie Cookies

So, the cookie dough for these easy brownie cookies was a fun test of ingenuity. We popped it in the deep freezer before that took a trip to my great aunt’s house. When the power came back, we moved the dough back to the fridge to become pliable.

Usually with cookie dough, I am all about chilling the dough for 24 hours. What I can say for sure is that this dough will do just fine if you freeze it once and thaw it out in the fridge overnight. In fact, it managed to do fine after being in the fridge for 24 hours after defrosting.

That in mind, you can make up this dough and freeze half until the next time you want cookies. I say that because these are maybe a little addictive. I literally at 6 of them for lunch, realized what I’d done, and then packed 6 more off to our neighbor.

Funny story: it turns out she’s been having peppermint cravings in her last trimester! I didn’t even know that. I was just like, I made cookies and I hope they aren’t too minty for you. Man, I love having cool neighbors. Seriously, our street is the best.

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Digression: My Neighbors are the Best

I’m digressing, but let’s just call this post an ode to my awesome village and we’ll get to the recipe in a minute. Let’s start with our neighbors to the right… we don’t really talk a lot, but my husband occasionally mows their lawn to keep the lines straight.

Then, when I lost my job, our neighbors got my resume and passed it out to OVER ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE. I just found it on LinkedIn one day with 30 different recruiters talking about opportunities for it.

On our other side, our neighbors have watched our dog a half dozen times, and let us wander through their yard with our very curious toddler. They’re sweet as can be and they prayed over me after I lost my grandmother earlier this year. They are such loving and wonderful people.

Across the street, we have possibly the most generous couple I’ve ever met. Seriously, they’ve lent us every tool imaginable, helped build our deck, hauled that freezer back and forth from my aunt’s, gone on Home Depot runs for us, and shared endless beers with us. And they won’t take payment or anything. I just occasionally send over food.

Actually, they are out in the garage so often, Cub thinks they live outside. After the storm the other night, she was so scared of the thunder coming back. Her first questions were about if it was going to rumble more and if the neighbors were okay. We had to ask them to wave to her from the window.

We have two sets of neighbors across the street who are close to our age and have kids close to Cub’s age, and both are expecting their seconds in the next week or two. All of them sweet and generous. Seriously. Our street is the best.

So, anyway, that’s my love letter to my street. But that’s why I was automatically like, “Oh, I cannot eat any more of these, but I know who to give them to.”

Back to Easy Brownie Cookies, Eh?

The dough itself was really easy, and having the ingredients premeasured really minimized the amount of chaos my daughter could wreak (Here are the bowls our daughter likes).

I set out the stick of butter and the egg on the counter to come to room temperature, and we went for a walk around the block. Once we were back, we washed our hands. Ready to bake, she grabbed the butter with her bare hand and squished it into the bowl, giggling as it smushed out between her fingers.

Then, I helped her pour the bowl of sugar in. We started the mixer, and went to wash her hands again to get the butter off. You can skip this step if you don’t mind buttery hands touching everything.

Once the butter was creamy and fluffy, I cracked in the egg, and she poured in the little bowl of vanilla. I fished out the bowl after she dropped it in the mixing bowl. We ran the mixer again as I carried her and the spent bowls to the sink and the egg shell to the compost bin.

All that combined, we just had to dump in the dry ingredients. I had already sifted the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda into a bowl. Cub took a measuring cup and messily scooped it into the stand mixer. Once it was all combined, but not overmixed, we pulled out the bowl.

Easy Mint Brownie Cookies — Follow me on Pinterest! @ellejayathome

Prepping for the Fridge or Freezer

This part was all mommy. I tore off a sheet of parchment paper, and scooped the dough out onto it. You have to try and get the dough into a long log for this part. Then, I rolled the paper around the log and further rolled it on the counter like I was trying to make a snake. This smooths and even disperses the dough.

Once the log is about 18-inches long, I twisted up the ends of the paper and put it in the fridge to chill overnight. This ended up being a chill for 4 hours, then a freeze for 42 hours. Ultimately, after another 24 hours in the fridge, they were ready.

Ready to Bake

I floured the baking surface down first. Then, I unrolled the dough from the paper. It needed to be rolled a little again because the freezing left the sides a little crinkly looking, and I wanted to smooth it back out.

I cut the log into two halves, and portioned each half into 12 cookies. These cookies turned out pretty big, so you could easily cut it into 3 logs and portion those into a dozen cookies each.

Please note, though, that this dough spreads a bit (even cold). I tested this out using a biscuit cutter on some of the dough rolled out to 1/4-inch thick. I even popped the cut cookies into the freezer for 10 minutes before they baked. They still spread.

So, ultimately, yes, you can scoop, slice, or use a cookie-cutter. However, I do not recommend trying for cute shapes because they’re going to spread. A circle cutter will get you evenly shaped cookies though.

Remember: These are EASY Brownie Cookies

You can put in more effort, but this recipe is supposed to make it easy on you. That’s why I felt better about just slicing and baking. I found that a knife did fine, but it did kind of squish the dough a little.

You can bypass that by using dental floss. Wrap the floss around your dough, and pull to cut around the cookie from all sides. That way it “squishes” evenly on all sides and stays round.

Or, you can do what I did, and rotate the log 90º on every cut to minimize it being specifically squished on one side. Although, if you don’t care, just cut the things and get them in the oven. Who cares?

Mint Icing, Anyone?

The brownie cookies by themselves are good. They are basic. They kill a chocolate craving, and they are easy!

The mint icing is equally easy with just 4 (or 5 if you want it green) ingredients and an optional piping bag (you can use a plastic baggie). All it is is powdered sugar, one egg white, mint extract, vanilla extract, and optional green food coloring.

You can literally dump it all into your stand mixer and beat it until you get stiff glossy peaks. It’s so easy. You just have to watch it. Then you spoon that icing into a plastic bag or piping bag. Snip off the tip, and drizzle the icing over your cookies.

Keep in mind, I made the icing wicked minty with the expectation that there wouldn’t be a ton of icing on each cookie. If you choose to ice the whole surface of your cookie (I tested this out for you, btw) it will end up tasting like a toothpaste cookie. It honestly didn’t suck, but I wouldn’t have given it to the neighbors.

Thank You for Reading Elle Jay at Home

If you’re actually reading this post, I want to thank you. Research supposedly shows that posts of longer length do better with search engines. That’s why I’ve been writing these increasingly long posts to go with my recipes.

I also feel like maybe someone out there is feeling like I am and might enjoy the ramblings of a crazy friend. If you’re one of those folks, please comment and let me know you’re there. I already love you for sticking with me.

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I take suggestions and criticisms. So far, only one person has written in to let me know I left the flour measurement off my banana bread recipe (my husband’s aunt). That was a catastrophe averted, and I really appreciated that.

Also, this Easy Brownie Cookies recipe was inspired by a friend telling me that the Blueberry Lavender Scones were a little too complicated, and she was more of a break-and-bake kind of girl. If you, my friend, made it this far, seriously, comment and let me know if you try this.