Chocolate Mint Thumbprints are an intense chocolate cookie similar to a shortbread and filled with a lush, mint chocolate ganache. If you love Andes mints or After Dinner Mints, you'll love these cookies.
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Why You’ll Love These Chocolate Mint Thumbprints
- Triple chocolate = triple joy (bittersweet chocolate, cocoa, and mint candy)
- Buttery shortbread texture that melts in your mouth
- A lush mint ganache that tastes like a fancy after-dinner chocolate
- Perfect for cookie trays, gifting, or late-night “taste testing”
This Chocolate Mint Thumbprint recipe comes from an old issue of Food & Wine, and it’s become one of my all-time favorites. Think of it as a cousin to my Double Chocolate Chunk Shortbread — buttery, crisp, and deeply chocolatey.
Chocolate and mint are a classic pair for a reason.
These thumbprints are elegant enough for a cocktail party but just as good on a cozy Sunday baking day.
They’re the kind of cookie that could easily replace a box of after-dinner chocolates for dessert or a hostess gift except these are homemade, fresher and a whole lot more satisfying.
The recipe takes a few steps, but it’s absolutely worth it.
With four kinds of chocolate: bittersweet, Dutch-process cocoa, mint candy, and white chocolate in the ganache, every bite is rich, smooth and a little bit fancy.
What You'll Need to Make Mint Thumbprint Cookies
Chocolate lineup:
• Bittersweet chocolate: melts into the dough for deep, rich flavor.
• Dutch-process cocoa powder: dark color and even deeper flavor.
• Mint chocolate candies: for creating the filling. Andes, Junior Mints, After Eight, or Peppermint Patties all work.
• White chocolate: combined with the mint chocolate for the base of mint ganache to fill each cookie. Or eat by the spoonful. I won't tell.
Other essentials:
• Heavy cream: you'll warm in a sauce pan or microwave then pour over the bittersweet chocolate to combine into the dough.
• Butter, sugar, and egg yolks: classic cookie ingredients to make the dough buttery and tender.
• Sanding sugar to add sparkle and a delicate crunch.
• A small tool to make indentations. This could be your thumb, a teaspoon, melon baller, or even a wine cork dusted with flour.
• A pastry bag or small spoon to fill each cookie with ganache.
Baker’s tip:
Use good-quality chocolate here — it’s the flavor star. Ghirardelli chips, Lindt bars, or Trader Joe’s baking chocolate will make these cookies taste like something from a boutique bakery.
- Bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli chips)
- Mint candy (Andes, or Junior Mints or After Eight Dinner Mints)
- Dutch process cocoa
- Heavy Cream
- White Chocolate
- Sanding sugar
- A tool for making reservoirs in each cookie for mint ganache
- A teaspoon to fill the reservoirs with the mint ganache or a pastry bag to squeeze the ganache into the holes.
Dutch Process Cocoa Powder vs. Regular Cocoa Powder
Do you remember the difference between dutch-process cocoa and regular cocoa powder?
Neither do I. So I looked it up for you.
If you like cookies made with cocoa powder, you might like Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies OR Double Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies OR Black Cocoa Cut-Out Cookies.
Cookie Baking Advice
You may find these baking posts helpful: from How to Avoid Flat Cookies, How to Freeze Cookie Dough, Room Temperature Butter for Baking to Salted or Unsalted Butter for Cookies? to Do I Need A Cookie Scoop?, Cookie Size Chart to What Should a Beginner Bake? to Where Can I Buy Sprinkles?, Why is my sugar cookie dough too sticky? and Cookie Holidays. What is Sanding Sugar and Do I need Parchment Paper? might also be helpful. This Cuisinart 5-speed is my favorite hand mixer. Why do my hand mixer beaters fall out? Cookie dough freezes great as do already baked cookies but find out what other desserts you can freeze.
Recipe Notes
The first thing you'll do is chop bittersweet chocolate and chocolate mint candy then melt them together.
The easiest way to chop chocolate is with a sharp knife or bench scraper.
Chop the chocolate on a piece of wax paper on top of your cutting board.
That way you can just pick up the wax paper and pour the chocolate into the bowl.
This thumbprint recipe uses two egg yolks instead of whole eggs.
Whenever a cookie calls for just yolks, you know it’s going to be extra good.
Case in point, this recipe for Italian Butter Cookies.
Save the egg whites to make an egg white omelet for breakfast.
Kidding!
I used a movie theater box of Junior Mints for the chocolate mint ganache filling and it was perfect.
If you don’t have Junior Mints you could also use After Eight Mints or Andes mints or Peppermint Patties.
You bake these thumbprints without the filling.
However, you pull the cookies out after 10 minutes and reinforce the cavity with whatever tool you used to create the cavities
Be careful, the cookies will be hot and the dough is a bit fragile.
Don't push too hard or you'll collapse the cookie.
The cookies go back in the oven for another five minutes after this step.
How to Make Thumbprint Cookies
Tools You Can Use to Make Indentations:
- Your thumb
- Teaspoon
- Melon Baller
- A wine cork dusted with flour
- Rounded end of a vegetable peeler
Once you pull the cookies out of the oven, let them cool, then fill with the chocolate mint ganache.
You can use a teaspoon to fill the holes with ganache.
Or if you want your cookies to have a neater appearance, fill a pastry bag with the mint ganache.
Squeeze a half teaspoon of ganache onto each cookie.
These Chocolate Mint Thumbprint Cookies are buttery, chocolatey, and filled with cool mint ganache. Think Andes Mints, but in cookie form. The dough has three kinds of chocolate for rich flavor and a melt-in-your-mouth texture, and the mint filling gives them a festive twist. Perfect for cookie trays, gifting, or just treating yourself with something indulgent
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Recipe
Rich Chocolate Mint Thumbprint Cookies
Chocolate Mint Thumbprint cookies are intensely chocolaty thanks to THREE kinds of chocolate in the dough, which is topped with a lush, creamy mint white chocolate ganache.
Ingredients
- 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- 2 ounces mint chocolate, chopped (Use part of a movie-theater box of Junior Mints)
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup coarse sugar such as Turbinado, for rolliing
- 3 ounces white chocolate, chopped
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- ½ teaspoon pure peppermint extract
Instructions
Make the Cookie Dough
In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the bittersweet and mint chocolates in 30-second intervals until nearly melted.
Whisk until smooth, then let cool.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the cocoa and salt.
In the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter until creamy.
Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla. Scrape the chocolate into the mixer and beat just until incorporated. Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed, scraping the side of the bowl occasionally, until smooth.
Transfer the dough to a sheet of plastic wrap and pat it into a disk ala pie crust; wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.
Bake the Cookies
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Pour sanding sugar into a small bowl.
Portion tablespoons of the dough and roll into balls, then roll in the coarse sugar and place on baking sheet.
Using your thumb or a melon baller or the handle of a vegetable peeler, make an indentation in the center of each cookie.
Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, until slightly firm.
Remove the cookie sheets from the oven. Using the melon baller or the vegetable peeler, press the indentation in the cookies again.
Return the cookies to the oven and bake for five more minutes.
Cool on wire rack.
Make the Ganache
Put the white chocolate in a small bowl.
Meanwhile, pour the cream into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave at high power until boiling, about 30 seconds.
Pour the hot cream over the white chocolate and let stand until melted, then whisk until smooth. Add peppermint extract and stir.
Fill the thumbprints with the white-chocolate ganache and refrigerate just until set, about 30 minutes. See note.
Cookies will keep for a week in an airtight container.
Freezes well
Notes
Filling the thumbprints with mint ganache:
You can put the ganache into a pastry bag or a resealable plastic bag with a corner of the bag snipped off. Or you can fill the thumbprints using a teaspoon.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 36 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 75Total Fat 8gSaturated Fat 5gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 3gCholesterol 31mgSodium 54mgCarbohydrates 16gFiber 1gSugar 11gProtein 2g
Rich Chocolate Mint Thumbprint Cookie Recipe
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