Vegan Thin Mints (the BEST ever!)
These Vegan Thin Mints are the best ever! Just like the Girl Scout Cookies, but are vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free and with no added oils or butters, yet taste just like the traditional! So unbelievably delicious and yet, so much healthier than store-bought! Made with only 8 ingredients!
Servings: 18 cookies
Calories: 268kcal
Ingredients
- 1 cup (112g) superfine blanched almond flour* (see NOTES at bottom)
- ½ cup (64g) superfine oat flour
- 6 tablespoons (36g) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoons (30g) coconut sugar (or regular if your prefer)
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- 7 tablespoons (140g) pure maple syrup
- ½ cup (128g) super creamy roasted almond butter
- 1/8 teaspoon pure peppermint oil (not extract, I got my oil at Michaels)
COATING
- 2 cups (480g) semi-sweet dairy-free chocolate chips (I used mini Enjoy Life)
- 1/8 teaspoon peppermint oil
- 2 teaspoons oil or 1 tablespoon warm milk, as needed, to help thin out the chocolate so it's easily smooth to coat cookies
NOTE
- Always use a scale for accuracy when baking, following MY gram weights listed. You never need cups, just the scale and bowl.
- I use this scale.
Instructions
- To a large bowl, add the almond flour, oat flour, cocoa powder, coconut sugar and salt and whisk very well to ensure there are no lumps.
- To a medium bowl, add the syrup, almond butter and peppermint oil and stir until completely smooth. It’s important to mix the liquids separately from the dry first so that the peppermint is mixed in thoroughly.
- Pour the wet over the dry and stir until it comes together into a thick, sticky batter. It may take a few minutes. Place the dough onto a piece of parchment paper and wrap it up tightly. Put it either in the freezer for 30 minutes or the fridge for 1 hour. Don’t chill it too long or it can dry the dough out and make it hard to roll out. If this happens, set it out at room temp until it’s soft enough to roll.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and line 2 pans with parchment paper.
- Unwrap the dough and place another large piece of parchment paper over the dough and use a roller to roll the dough out into a large piece, ¼ inch thick. This size is important so that they bake up evenly and somewhat crispy. Use a round cookie cutter 2.5 inch wide to cut out each cookie and keep reusing the dough until it’s all gone. Put 12 on the 1st pan and 6 on the 2nd.
- Bake the 1st pan for 10-11 minutes. 11 minutes will make them more crispy. Cool on the pan 5 minutes and cool COMPLETELY on a cooling rack before coating them, about 30 mins.
- For the coating, add the chocolate chips either to a double boiler or a large microwave-safe bowl. Melt the chocolate chips in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each. This will help the chocolate to melt evenly and not burn. Once 90% melted, remove and stir until completely smooth and runny, adding the oil or milk for a smoother mixture if it seems too thick. Make sure the milk (if used) is warm and not cold or it will cause the chocolate to seize up! Stir in the peppermint oil. I found 1/8 teaspoon perfect, but if you desire it stronger, add a bit more, keeping in mind a little goes a long way.
- Place a large piece of parchment paper on a flat plate/platter for this next step. Use a fork to place one cookie in the bowl of chocolate and flip it over with the fork until coated and lift it up and tap the cookie gently to the side of the bowl to shake/drain off excess and then drag the bottom of the cookie along the rim of the bowl and place onto the piece of parchment paper. I found this method to go very quickly and easily. Repeat with all the cookies and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to set. If desired, for the pretty lines I did on the tops, spoon the extra melted chocolate in a baggie and cut a really tiny corner off and drizzle on the tops. Place back to chill and set in the fridge for a few minutes.
- Remove the cookies from the paper after chilling and store in a container and keep in the fridge. They can be stored at room temperature perfectly fine, but I always loved eating my thin mints straight from the fridge because they are so good cold and hold their crispy texture longer.
Notes
NUT-FREE: For those that are nut-free, I would suggest to grind up raw sunflower kernels in a food processor into as fine a flour as you can get, being careful not to turn it into a nut butter. Use the same weight amount as the almond flour. Sub the almond butter with sunbutter. This will of course yield a sunflower taste to the cookies and the texture will probably be a bit grittier, but I believe in the case of these being desired to be crispy and the strong chocolate mint taste, the sunflower will work just fine.
PEPPERMINT: Peppermint oil is pure peppermint, nothing else added. So, not only is the flavor better, it is much stronger than peppermint extract, which has added alcohol. You can find pure peppermint oil very inexpensive at Michael's or Amazon, Thrive, etc.