Double Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies

Oh yes.... these are goooooooood!

Now there are two ways of making them, to start with, I am going to tell you the 'proper way':

Ingredients
350g bittersweet chocolate chips
225g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
110g unsalted butter, room temperature
110g caster sugar
110g soft brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 large eggs
4 candy canes, coarsely crushed
Method
1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper. Stir in about 300g chocolate chips in medium bowl set over saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Take about 3-4tbsps of the melted chocolate; transfer to small metal bowl and reserve for drizzling.
2. Whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in medium bowl.
3. Beat butter in large bowl until creamy, you can use an electric mix for this but a wooden spoon will do it just as well, elbow grease it up!
4. To the butter add sugar and both extracts; beat until smooth. Add eggs; beat to blend. Beat in melted chocolate chips. Add in all the dry ingredients from step 2; beat just to blend. Stir in remaining unmelted chocolate chips.
5. Scoop up a small amount of dough and then roll into a ball (if you are being super specific then it is about a tablespoon amount of dough). Place on prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing cookies 1 1/2 inches apart.
6. Bake cookies for about 8 to 9 minutes. They will be soft looking - as long as a knife tip comes out clean then they are done, don't make the mistake I made years ago when I was convinced they weren't done so put them back in over and over again - not good.
7. Cool cookies on baking sheet for about 5 minutes. Transfer cookies on parchment paper to racks to cool completely.
8. Rewarm the remaining already melted chocolate over small saucepan of simmering water. Using fork, drizzle chocolate over cookies. Sprinkle crushed candy canes over, arranging some pieces with red parts showing. Chill just until chocolate sets, about 20 minutes.

These are sooooo good and also freezable. Just defrost at room temperature and enjoy!

Now the naughty but easy way:

Ingredients
Double chocolate cookie mix from any supermarket
Whatever other ingredients it says you need on the cookie packet (usually butter and water)
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
About 50g chocolate
4 candy canes, coarsely crushed

Method
1.Make the cookies from the supermarket mix as instructed
2. When you add the water into the mix, also add in the peppermint extract
3. Once the cookies have been cooled, melt the chocolate (as above) and then drizzle over the cookies, decorate with the candy canes, chill and serve!

Now, the second way is the cheat's way but they taste just as good, leave less mess, use less ingredients and take up less time. Plus, with the decoration they will look homemade anyway!

And they should look something like this:

Image shamelessly nicked from the Goddess that is Prudence Pennywise!