Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookie Cupcakes

I am somewhat obsessed with reading cooking blogs. Basically I love to cook and I enjoy getting inspiration for new dishes to try from reading about success stories from other bloggers' kitchens. I have a favorites list of about 15 blogs that I check regularly and every once in a while I also browse foodgawker for inspiration. My printouts and bookmarks from these sites have given me a healthy backlog of new recipes to try. I have discovered dozens of fabulous recipes that have become part of our regular rotation of dishes by trying new creations posted on cooking blogs.

One new recipe that has been on my radar screen to try is for cupcakes made with Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. We have several boxes left over from when Amelia sold the cookies this spring, so I thought this might be a good way to use them. I think I found this recipe through foodgawker as I do not visit the site where this recipe was posted regularly. http://momscrazycooking.blogspot.com/2011/03/thin-mint-girl-scout-cookie-cupcakes.html

While I do most of my menu planning and cooking alone, every once in a while I get inspired and try to involve the children. They enjoy helping in the kitchen, but I find it challenging most of the time because I struggle with how much they can/should be able to do. I need to learn to set my control issues aside though and let them help, no matter the mess or hassle involved because I want them to enjoy being in the kitchen.

This time around Amelia and John were happy to help. Cookies crumbled inside cupcakes...yes, please! First we baked the cupcakes. The recipe calls for using two boxed mixes, one chocolate and one for white cake. Crushed thin mint cookies are added to the chocolate mix and green food coloring is added to the white cake mix. John pounded the cookies with a kitchen hammer, and boy did he enjoy that! Talk about putting my control issues to the test, as I feared he would crack the countertops with each pounding... Below are the chocolate/green cupcakes after baking.The icing was a basic vanilla icing with a few drops of green food coloring added in. The photos don't show it well but the color was a subtle minty looking green (think light green like mint ice cream). We added crumbled think mint cookies on top for additional decoration.

Amelia and John enjoyed icing the cupcakes, and this is defintely an area that they are good helpers. I placed a cookie sheet under each of their work stations and was glad I did, as this helped with clean-up. I think John took one lick of icing for each swipe he actually put on a cupcake.

And yes, John actually does wear shirts most of the time despite the fact that many of my photos show otherwise. But this activity was post-bath and John thinks men shouldn't wear shirts to bed, hence the bare chest look.

We had a good time making and decorating the cupcakes, and they tasted pretty good. Not excellent, but better than OK. The mint flavor was really nice - subtle and not overpowering - and the icing was tasty too. I think the drawback is using the boxed mixes, as boxed cake (without major modifications to the mix) is just not that good. These cupcakes would be outstanding with a homemade cake recipe underneath the minty topping and with the minty crunch inside.