Cocoa Cookie Sticks - Peanut Butter and Pretzel / Mint and Pistachio

Meet the girl scout cookies' sophisticated older siblings:

A simple bittersweet chocolate cookie dough (which is gluten free!), amazingly delicious on its own, finished two ways:

Topped with peanut butter and crushed pretzels with a drizzle of chocolate (you may have met this combo before!) or

Dipped in slightly minty chocolate and sprinkled with chopped pistachios

The cookie dough bakes up and stays crisp on the outside and kinda crumbly with the peanut butter topping, but when enrobed with chocolate for the mint and pistachio cookies, it transforms into a softer, chewy chocolate cookie.

These are super easy to make, delicious and stunning. You will not regret it.

(sorry for so many photos, it's super difficult to choose!)

Cocoa Cookie Sticks -Peanut butter and Pretzel or Mint and Pistachio 

Cookie dough adapted slightly from BraveTart
Makes 1 batch of cookie dough (2 dozen cookies)

3/4 cup + 2 tbsp (4 oz / 110g) rice flour  (or all purpose flour for non-GF)
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp (3 oz / 85g) cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup (6 oz / 170g) granulated sugar
6 tbsp (3 oz / 85g) unsalted butter, room temperature, cubed
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted

Either:
Peanut butter and Pretzel Cookie Sticks (makes enough to cover 1 batch of cookies)
1/4 cup (4 tbsp) peanut butter
2 tsp powdered milk
2 tsp powdered sugar
2 tsp honey
1/2 - 1 cup (250 ml) crushed pretzels
2 oz melted bitter-sweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

Or:
Mint and Pistachio Cookie Sticks (makes enough to cover 1 batch of cookies) - Gluten Free
5 oz bitter-sweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 tsp (or to taste) peppermint extract
2 tbsp pistachios, finely chopped


For the cookie dough: Stir together the first 6 ingredients. Add the butter and rub it in using your finger tips (like making pastry/ pie crust) until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir together the egg and egg yolk, vanilla and melted chocolate, then add to the cocoa powder mixture and stir together until completely combined. Divide the dough into two pieces, flatten into squares and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

On a piece of parchment paper, roll one square of dough out until it's 1/3"  (8mm)  thick. Cut rectangular fingers of dough out to be 2/3" (15mm) wide x  4  1/3" (110mm) long x 1.3" (8mm) thick. Repeat for the rest of the dough.

Place on a lined cookie tray 1" apart, put in the freezer for 15 minutes, then bake for 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the tray, to a wire rack to cool.

For Peanut butter and Pretzel cookie sticks:
Stir together the peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar and honey. Put the crushed pretzels in a wide, shallow bowl.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a heat proof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
To assemble, take some (I used a rounded 1/2 tsp) of the peanut butter mixture, and flatten and spread it with your fingers onto the top of the cookie stick, until it covers the top completely. Push the peanut butter-covered top into the crushed pretzels and place on a wire rack, repeat until all the cookies have a layer of peanut butter and pretzels. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookie sticks by placing the melted chocolate into a ziploc bag, cutting the very tip of one corner off and squeezing it onto the cookies (or just do it the fast way and drizzle the chocolate on with a fork)

For the Mint and Pistachio Cookie Sticks:
Melt the 2/3 of the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan for simmering water / in the microwave. Remove from the heat, then add the rest of the chocolate, and the peppermint extract and stir until melted and mixed. Dip the cookies into the chocolate one at a time, turning them over with a fork to coat them completely. Remove from the chocolate with the fork and tap the fork a few times on the side of the bowl to remove excess chocolate. Place the Coated cookie stick on a lined cookie tray and sprinkle on the finely chopped pistachios while the chocolate is still wet.

Allow the chocolate to set at room temperature, then store the cookies in an airtight container.