Some of you may remember my talking about my first real baking venture of the year: Andes Mint Cookies. I’ve officially made them three times, and I wanted to share some tips, should you decide to make them.

The first batch, I ended up with 19 cookies.
The second batch, I ended up with 17 cookies. They were GIANT-sized.
The third (today’s) batch, I ended up with 31 cookies.

Each package of Andes Mints comes with 28 mints. So here are some things to consider:

The bigger the cookie, the less mint. Sure, you could go crazy and put TWO mints per cookies, but I’ve discovered that a little mint goes a long way, except when the cookies are giant-sized, in which you don’t feel like you have enough with just one. But with two, it might overpower the cookie with mint.

If you go smaller, which is what I did today is response to batch two’s giant-sized cookies, here’s another tip: try cutting the mints in half before putting them on the cookie. Like I said, a little bit goes a long way. I discovered a full-sized mint on a small cookie ends up with the some of the mint oozing OFF the cookie once you spread it around, and I’m anti-waste, so there’s that.

Also, and I should note I did this on the first two batches, but wasn’t quite with the program for the third, make sure you unwrap all your necessary mints while the cookies are baking. That way, when the cookies come out of the oven, you plop the mints on the cookies IMMEDIATELY, and they start melting. If you’re unwrapping and then plopping, the cookies will cool too fast, which means the mint won’t be soft enough to spread (in which case, I stuck the cookies in the cooling-down oven for just a tick, which helped, but I worried about the cookies being too hard).

At any rate, that’s my bit of wisdom. 😉 Happy Baking!