Thin mints - or mint podgies

So much for returning to regular blogging! I've been in Israel for a week with Munchkin Granny, visiting my Grandma and going to a family Bar Mitzvah. I meant to get a post up before I went but ended up in a mad dash and didn't make it. And now I've gone and left my camera in Israel and have yet to negotiate with one of my lovely uncles what the exchange rate between camera postage and Cadbury's creme eggs is, so I'm going to be going through my backlog of photos for a little while!

Anyway, the trip to Israel was great. Here's a roundup:
Cousin count: 12 (ten mine, two MG's)
Scary encounters with Israeli drivers: don't know, still have my eyes shut
Beds slept in: 5 in 6 nights, if you include the aeroplane seat where I failed to sleep
Mysterious and invisible dense items making MG's suitcase inexplicably heavy: one (large)
Rites of passage observed: one (bravo, Chanan!)
Number of sausages consumed by cousins: disappeared too quickly to count
Vegan brownies made: One Big Pile
National holidays participated in: two - Remembrance Day and Independence Day
Emails from anxious students staring down the barrel of a deadline: many


So all in all, an eventful trip and lovely to see Grandma and all the other lovely relations over there. While there I neither made nor ate thin mints, but I did try out this recipe for them before I left. I haven't been posting about it, but I have continued to bake for my colleagues at work this semester - albeit a bit more sporadically because of other commitments. I can't remember what led me to this recipe on Baking Bites, but I thought they would be elegant and chocolatey and fitting for the closing of the semester. Thin Mints are one of the cookies sold to raise funds by American Girl Scouts, but I was surprised to find that they are boxed brands, not home-made. My only encounter with Girl Scout Cookies was in a Peanuts cartoon but I gather from Nicole's posts that they are a bit of a cultural institution, and she's been trying out some home-made versions.

I read her instructions carefully but I still managed to make them a bit thick. I liked it that the dough was rolled into a log and sliced - less messy than rolling into balls and flattening (although dipping them in chocolate afterwards was satisfyingly messy). But I should have sliced my slices thinner - the resulting biscuits were less dainty elegance and rather more jaw-cracker. In fact, one of my colleague said that she had broken a tooth on one - I hope she was joking! Another time I would cut them thinner and add a bit more mint, but to be honest, I would make a mint-flavoured version of these cookies in preference. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and it was an interesting foray into an American tradition.

Thin mints: recipe here