Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make a Peppermint Joe Joe's Copycat Recipe.
These dark chocolate covered peppermint sandwich cookies are one of the most popular items at Trader Joe's,
and they only have it once a year.
I find myself buying them in absolute massive quantities, that I really should be embarrassed of,
so I knew I had to make a copycat recipe so I could make this any time of the year I wanted,
and with as little shame as I wanted.
This recipe makes 40 cookies, which is totally a lot,
but trust me, it's not enough.
40 cookies, you'll go through it like that.
We're gonna start with 1/2 cup of butter and put it into a mixing bowl.
You wanna make sure it's softened, and add in 1 cup of sugar.
We're gonna cream this together until it's smooth.
It should take about a full minute of mixing to really cream that together,
and then we're gonna add in 1 egg and 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract,
and mix this in real quick.
Once that's smooth add in 1 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour,
1/2 cup of cocoa powder,
and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
Mix this in until it's well combined.
Now once the mixture comes together you'll want to turn it out onto a clean countertop,
and you'll see it's just a little bit crumbly.
You'll smush it all together.
Knead your dough by hand until it starts to get shiny,
then you're gonna be able to roll this into a log.
Once you have a nice tight log, put it onto some plastic wrap and wrap it up.
You want to make sure you have it straight.
Wrap it up nice and tight,
and then we're gonna put this into the freezer for about 1 hour.
Once it's frozen solid take a sharp knife,
I always cut off the end,
and then I'm gonna cut as thin of slices as I can, and you want about 80 of them,
so you get 80 cookies just like this.
If you get a bad slice here in there don't worry just toss it aside.
we have plenty of dough to work with.
Next we're gonna line all these little cookies up on a parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet.
These won't spread so you can put plenty on the pan because we have a lot of cookies to bake up.
So I'll do, let's see, a row of three, six, seven,
and let's see how wide I can get it, probably four wide.
Once your tray is full pop these into a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.
You'll bake your cookies in batches.
Let them cool on the pan for a few minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely,
where they'll also harden up.
Now while you're waiting for them to bake and cool,
you can go ahead and put together your peppermint cream filling for your little sandwich cookie.
We'll start with 1/4 cup of vegetable shortening here in my bowl,
and I'm going to add in 1/2 cup of softened butter, and I'm using salted butter for this,
then add in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract,
and 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract,
and then we're gonna cream this together.
Once that mixture is smooth you can start adding in powdered sugar.
I have 3 cups of powdered sugar here, and I'm going to add it in about 1/2 cup at a time.
This filling gets really thick really fast, so take it slow until it gets super thick,
and you can barely mix it with your mixer.
Put a little in there,
start mixing it in.
Alright this mixture is so thick it's getting crumbly, and this is the perfect time to add in crushed candy cane.
I have 2 crushed candy canes here, which gives me about 14 cup of crushed candy cane.
Can I say a crush candy cane any more?
And then we're gonna pour it in and just stir it in with a spoon.
Take a little bit of the filling, roll it into a ball,
and then flatten it into a little disc.
We're gonna sandwich this between 2 of our baked cookies.
Just pick 2 of the cookies, sandwich it together,
and we'll repeat with the remaining cookies.
Once your cookies are all sandwiched together and paired up, it's time to dip them in melted chocolate.
You can use either 4 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips and melt them in the microwave,
or today I'm using 20 ounces of dark chocolate melting wafers.
These melt really well and they are amazing for dipping, so I'm gonna go ahead and pop this in the microwave.
Take one of the cookies, put it in the chocolate and flip it over,
so it's covered in the chocolate.
Then use a fork to scoop it out and put it onto a wax paper or parchment paper lined tray.
Before the chocolate hardens , there's just one more final touch you want to put on,
and that's a little more crushed candy cane.
Sprinkle a little bit on, and then we'll let this chocolate harden up.
I hope you enjoyed these homemade peppermint Joe Joe's as much as we do ,
because seriously, can't get enough.
You can find the full written recipe in the video description.
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