Cookies
- Large handful (20 g) fresh mint leaves
- 1½ cups (320 g) white sugar
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup (227 g) sour cream
- 1 Tablespoon bourbon
- 2¾ cups (330 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
Frosting
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter
- Small handful (10-15 g) fresh mint – stems are OK
- 3 cups (342 g) powdered sugar
- 3 Tablespoons bourbon
Cookies:
Combine the large handful of mint and the white sugar in your blender and grind together. In a mixer, cream the minty sugar and the butter together. Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Mix in the sour cream and 1 Tablespoon of bourbon.
Add the dry ingredients, a little at a time, at low speed to avoid poofing yourself with flour.
Chill the cookie dough for at least one hour. Preheat your oven to 425°F.
Scoop 1- to 2-teaspoon blobs of dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat about 2 inches apart. Tell the blobs how pretty they are; they might feel insecure. (Not for nothin’, but this is some of the most delicious unbaked cookie dough you are likely to run across anywhere legal.)
Bake one sheet at a time for about 8 minutes, then swap out for a new tray. Let each batch of cookies cool on the baking sheet. If you run out of baking sheets, gently pull the parchment paper or silicone mat from the baking sheet, then blob out the next batch of cookie dough.
When the cookies have cooled, remove them to a large plate or baking sheet, then frost them.
Frosting:
Melt the remaining 1½ sticks of butter in a small saucepan. Stir in the rest of the fresh mint, and spread it out so that it makes as much contact as possible with the melted butter. Remove the pan from heat, and set it aside for 30 to 45 minutes. Go work on a crossword puzzle.
While you are out of the room, the mint will be infusing into the butter. Fats and alcohol both do a really good job of stripping flavor compounds from herbs and spices. In this case, the butter is taking on the flavors of fresh mint — not a candy caney minty flavor but the taste of actual fresh mint. After the mint and the melted butter have had an opportunity to really get to know each other, strain the butter into the bowl of your mixer and add the powdered sugar and bourbon to it. Starting on the mixer’s slowest speed, beat the frosting ingredients together faster and faster, until they are fluffy.
If the frosting seems a little too soft, refrigerate it for 10 to 15 minutes.
Use a small spatula or the back of a spoon to frost the cookies. If you are taking them somewhere — a Kentucky Derby party — let the frosting firm up for about half an hour before loading them in a single layer in a pizza box. Otherwise eat them with an actual mint julep and wonder what the poor people are doing this afternoon.
By themselves, these cookies are nice but surprisingly standoffish — gently minty, with a very faint background flavor of bourbon. The frosting, on the other hand, is very in-your-face and emphatic and pairs beautifully with its more subtle partner.
Featured photo: Mint Julep Cookies. Photo by John Fladd.