I am so excited about this! I cannot believe how much these GF Thin Mints taste like the Girl Scouts Thin Mints (well, at least from what I remember!). đ
For the Cookie Wafer:
1 pkg. of Betty Crocker’s GF Devil’s Food Cake Mix
1/4 cup Butter, melted (I used Smart Balance and I am sure a vegan butter substitute would work well too)
5 Tbs. Milk (or Milk Substitute)
1/8 tsp. Peppermint Oil (NOT extract)
I found this at Hobby Lobby
- Combine melted butter, cake mix, milk and peppermint oil in a large mixing bowl, or stand mixer. Mix until a ball of dough forms.
- Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
- Roll out dough. I rolled mine out pretty thin, maybe about 1/8-inch to 1/4-inch thick. They will rise a bit in the oven. I used sweet rice flour to dust my work area and rolling pin. You could also roll out between layers of parchment or wax paper, or even use the Pie Crust Maker (which I wish I had done, a lot less messy).
- I used a small circle cutter. I have also heard about using the lid of a spice jar as a cutter.
- Place cookies on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 350° for 8 – 12 minutes (mine were ready at 9 minutes in a convection oven). Let cool for a couple of minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.
For the Mint Chocolate Coating:
2 lbs. GF Dark Chocolate Candy Wafers
3/8 tsp. Peppermint Oil
- I concocted my own “double boiler” using 2 saucepans. Fill the bigger, bottom pan with about an inch or 2 of water. Set another slightly smaller saucepan on top and add candy wafers to this smaller pan. Be careful not to get any water in the pan with the candy wafers. Allow water to heat up and melt the candy wafers, stirring occasionally. When the chocolate is completely melted, add the peppermint oil and stir to incorporate.
- When the chocolate is ready, drop in the cookies, a few at a time, and coat fully in chocolate. I used a Candy Dipping Fork to remove the cookies from the chocolate. I HIGHLY recommend getting one of these little tools, it will make this process much easier and neater!
- Once I removed the cookies, I transferred them to a cooling rack to allow excess chocolate to drip off and thus prevent the chocolate from pooling around the cookie (be sure to put wax paper or something underneath to collect the chocolate drippings). Next time I make these, I am going to try spraying Pam on the cooling rack to see if it will make removing the dipped cookies any easier!
There you have it…easy peasy!
I sent samples of the Thin Mints to each boy’s school today, I will update if I get any reviews! Kids are the best critics, they don’t lie to spare your feelings. Trust me, I know not to ask my boys if my bum looks big in a pair of jeans! đ
And welcome to my blog!
Whether you're here looking for advice on how to go gluten free (with delicious kid-approved recipes of course!), or to read some of the latest medical research on celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity...or even to read about one woman's rise from the depths of gluten-free despair to a place of downright enthusiasm, it makes no matter. The point is, you are here now so let's have some fun!
Thank you so much! It has been so long since I have had thin mints, I can't wait to try this!
Those look awesome!!!! WTG Heidi!
Can you use regular cake mix? Just curious if they would turn out the same since I am unable to the GF mix in my local stores.
Hi Sarah!
Absolutely you can make these with regular cake mix (I am assuming that you do not have celiac disease, dermatitis herpetiformis or a gluten intolerance issue). I know standard cake mixes are a little bigger than the gluten-free cake mixes so if you follow this recipe, you made need to add a little more of the wet ingredients (I do not cook with any gluten, so unfortunately I cannot experiment for you). You can also do an internet search for Copycat Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie Recipes. There are a lot of them out there but here is one to get you started! http://www.recipezaar.com/Girl-Scout-Thin-Mints-R…
Enjoy!
Heidi
Hi there, thanks very much for this recipe! it has been AGES since my last thin mint. I noticed the Betty Crocker GF mix has soy flour in it. Do you have any suggestions of what i can use as a substitute? What do I need to consider (eg. would regular chocolate cake mix work? )? Could I add cocoa to a Bob's Red Mill GF cake mix perhaps?
Thanks Again!
Amazing! I made these last weekend and they are delicious–plus, they taste just like thin mints (as far as I can remember). I brought some to gluten-eating friends who thought they were amazing too. Thank you so much for sharing this!
Some notes to share with others who may have some of the same questions I did:
(1) Peppermint oil is surprisingly hard to find–I finally found some at the local GNC (a health supplement retail store).
(2) Dark chocolate wafers are also surprisingly hard to find… I used Hershey's dark chocolate chips melted down, and they worked just find. However, yesterday I saw dark chocolate wafers on sale at JoAnn Fabrics (of all places) and picked some up for my next batch! I would not have thought to look for chocolate wafers at JoAnn's… but I suppose many craft stores might have baking/cooking products.
(3) The few dipped wafers I immediately put in the fridge to cool dried/hardened better than the majority, which I left out to cool on the counter. This is completely the opposite of what I expected–so next time I might clear space in the fridge so I can cool them there. I'm not sure what kind of effect this will have on the chocolate (due to tempering issues), but I got some swirls on my slow-cooled and no swirls on my fridge-cooled this first time… so we'll see how round two goes.
(4) The wafers seem to start to go stale fairly quickly (within the week, even though in a tupperware)… I'm not sure if this is because I stored them in the fridge once they cooled, or because I left them out overnight to air cool/dry. They're not bad at all–just not as crisp as they were when I first made them!
I'd enjoy hearing anyone else's experiences with trying this recipe. It's definitely a labor of love to go through all the steps to make these–but completely worth it.