Chocolate Mint Squares

We needed something that we could make for desert for guests and my sister found this recipe and decided to make it, and I helped her make it. The recipe is for chocolate mint squares and the original recipe can be found here:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateMintSquares.html

The recipe is basically just a mint Nanaimo Bar, it’s made up of three layers:

The bottom layer is a cookie with coconut in it, the middle layer a creamy filling and the top layer is chocolate.

Bottom Layer:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) (113 grams) butter

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar

1/3 cup (30 grams) unsweetened cocoa

1 large egg, beaten

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups (200 grams) graham cracker crumbs

1 cup (65 grams) Coconut

1/2 cup (50 grams) walnuts or pecans, chopped

Before you start you need to crush the graham crackers so that you don’t have to deal with it later, make sure you make it into crumbs and not just small chunks. Also at this time chop the nuts.

You start by melting the butter in a pan then stir in the sugar and cocoa powder. Then add the egg gradually so that the egg is mixed fully into the mixture. You then allow it to cook for about 2 minutes. When it’s done add the vanilla, crumbs, coconut, and chopped nuts. Put this mixture into a pan and the cover and put it into the refrigerator for about an hour, although we only had it in the fridge for 30 minutes so that amount is probably long enough.

Filling (Middle Layer):

Ingredients

1/4 cup (56 grams) unsalted butter

2 - 3 tablespoon milk

2 tablespoons vanilla custard powder (Bird's) or vanilla pudding powder

1/2 teaspoon pure peppermint extract

2 cups (230 grams) powdered sugar (confectioners or icing) sugar

Green Food Coloring (optional)

First melt the butter and soften the cream cheese in the microwave so that it’s easier to mix together, instead of using the microwave you could just leave them out on the counter for a while so that they can soften.

To start you put the cream cheese and the butter into a mixer and blend them together. Then beat in the milk, vanilla pudding powder, peppermint extract and powdered sugar. Lastly you add a few drops of green food coloring and mix until it’s fully mixed in. Spread the filling onto the bottom layer and put in the fridge until firm (about 30 minutes, although I think we only had it in there for about 10 minutes)

Top Layer:

Ingredients

4 ounces (115 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 tablespoon (14 grams) unsalted butter

In a double boiler melt the chocolate and butter, spread this mixture over the filling and refrigerate. It only really needs to be in the fridge long enough for the chocolate to harden but it can stay in longer.

To Serve:

For serving it my sister cut three squares and put it so that the tips of the squares were together and the other side of the squares were spread out, she then put some whipped cream in the center of the squares and drizzled chocolate sauce on top, it was really yummy. A picture on the finished product:

Overall experience:

This recipe was really easy and fun to make and the result was yummy, I’d definitely try making this again. This recipe would also be fun to experiment with, like maybe use a different pudding powder and see how that’d taste or put some other flavoring besides the peppermint; if anyone tries experimenting with this recipe please let me know the results.