VGP #14 SURPRISE!

Everyone loves a surprise, and this is the season for big ones! I bet everybody reading this has a surprise in store for someone else - and you may even get one yourself. So this is SURPRISE Week on your virtual goody plate. You're just eating along, thinking it's a regular cookie, and SURPRISE! There is something inside you weren't expecting. These recipes were pretty fun to find, and even more fun to make.

It all started when I was talking to my Mom about the virtual goody plate a few weeks ago - I needed help prioritizing the 60+ recipes I wanted to try. Mom said, "Well, you're going to do Barbru's Surprise Mint Cookies, right?" As if it was the most natural and expected thing in the world and I was supposed to know what she was talking about. Barbru Nielson is an old family friend so I understood that part, but I returned on the offensive, "Why are there Surprise Mint Cookies I've never heard of before?!" We both rolled our eyes and Mom went hunting in her brittle, yellowing recipe binder for the handwritten card from decades ago.Indeed they are a surprise, and a delicious one. It's a basic dough much like chocolate chip cookie dough, but instead of stirring in chips you chill it, then make small balls of dough and tuck a Junior Mint inside each one! While they cook, the cookies spread and the Junior Mint melts. The chocolate kind of stays in the middle but the minty part seeps out and makes a sticky minty candy area and kind of infuses the whole cookie with mint. The outside was a little too plain for me so I just melted some chocolate chips and drizzled on top but you could decorate any way you like.

Barbru's Surprise Mint Cookies

a.k.a. Junior Mint Meltaways

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

A large box of Junior Mints (movie theater size)

1. Sift together the flour, soda and salt. In a separate bowl cream the sugar, brown sugar and butter until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and vanilla and combine well. Add the flour mixture a little at a time and beat until well combined. Chill dough for 2 hours.

2. Preheat oven to 350. Roll the dough into 1 to 1 1/2 inch balls. Make a slight indentation with your thumb and place a Junior mint in it. Use your fingers and thumb to cover the mint with dough. Keep the mint as close to the top of the cookie as you can, just enough to cover with dough. The minty filling will seep down and make the bottom super sticky if it's too low. Even though there is plenty of butter in the dough you should lightly coat your baking sheets with cooking spray in case the bottoms become sticky from the candy.

3. Bake for about 12 minutes until lightly browned. Let cool for about 4-5 minutes on sheets before moving to a cooling rack. Decorate cookies any way you like or leave plain. Enjoy!

Makes about 3 1/2 dozen