Walnut, Mint & Triple Chocolate Chunk Holiday Cookies

Ingredients:

• 3 cups Baking Flour
• For this you want to loosely pack it into your measuring cup, not cram as much in as possible.
• 3 medium Eggs
• 1 ½ cup of Butter (or Shortening)
• 1 cup of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
• 1 cup of Dark Chocolate Chunks
• For this I used 8 25g candy Dark Chocolate candy bars with mint. This gives the cookies a nice double-mint flavor. You can skip the mint if you want.
• Chop them up in the food processor, try to get them to the same size as the chips, give or take.
• Helpful Hint from @GoddessGeek: Chill the Chocolate before the food processor so it doesn't get all melty.
• 1 cup of Crushed Walnuts
• This is the volume you want after crushing, not before.
• Again try to get them the size of the chips, mine usually come out a bit smaller, that's ok, you just don't want walnut dust.
• 1 cup of Crushed Peppermint Candies
• This is the volume you want after crushing, not before.
• Again try to get them the size of the chips, mine usually come out a bit smaller, that's ok, you just don't want candy dust.
• Yes, I know I just said that, but the same goes here. =D
• ¾ cup of Brown Sugar
• For this you want to tightly pack it into your measuring cup, cram as much in as possible.
• ¾ cup of Maple Sugar
• Maple Sugar is in the same process as Maple Syrup, the sap of Sugar Maple Trees is boiled down, to get sugar all the water is boiled away, not just some like for syrup.
• Maple Sugar is kind of hard to find, if you can't get any take 1 cup of normal White Baking Sugar and stir in ¼ cup of Real Maple Syrup until evenly mixed.
• For this you want to tightly pack it into your measuring cup, cram as much in as possible.
• 2 teaspoons of Vanilla
• 2 teaspoons of Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon of Salt
• Chocolate Sprinkles

For the metrically inclined among us, 1 cup is a volume measure approximately 237 ml, and 1 teaspoon is approximately 5 ml.

The Steps:

1. Take the Butter out and place in a large mixing bowl. Let it warm up to room temperature.
• If you have a gas range, set the bowl over your pilot light, this is enough warmer it will be a little quicker.
• If you're in a hurry you can microwave on half power in 10 second increments, but BE CAREFUL. You want it soft, not melted or liquid.
• DO NOT use soft serve butter, this is too soft and will ruin the texture of your cookies.
2. While Butter is warming, in a second mixing bowl combine Flour, Salt and Baking Powder. Set aside for later.
3. Once Butter is room temperature, cream it together with both the Brown Sugar and Maple Sugar.
• To cream, pour sugars over softened butter.
• Using a pastry blender or fork cut the butter into the sugar.
• Continue until the mixture is fluffy, this is will probably take awhile.
4. Add Eggs and Vanilla to sugar/butter mix. Beat until evenly blended.
5. Take Flour mixture and now add it into the Sugar mixture. Make sure its mixed well.
6. Preheat oven to 375°F (191°C)
7. Take Chocolate Chips, Dark Chocolate Chunks, Peppermint Chunks and Walnut Chunks, and gently fold into cookie dough until evenly distributed.
8. Lightly grease your cookie sheet.
• I use a 42 cm by 30 cm one and this batch fits perfectly on it.
9. Dump cookie dough onto the cookie sheet and spread out until its an even depth.
10. Top evenly with chocolate sprinkles to taste.
11. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.
• When done the edges should be a crisp brown and the center firm.
• Using a cake tester, tooth pick or fork, poke the middle of the cookie and pull out. If you have any dough on it, you need to cook longer, otherwise you're done.
12. Let the cookie sit and cool for about 20 minutes or so, you'll want the cookie to firm up but the candy to still be gooey.
13. Using the cookie-cutter of your choice, begin cutting out your cookies from the giant cookie.
• I usually just use a basic round one because I get more out of a batch that way. But if you want to be festive with a gingerbread man or reindeer or something, have fun with it.
14. Place cookies in air tight container.
• Hint: In the bottom of the container place a piece of bread, cover with a napkin or paper towel, then put the cookies in. This will keep the cookies moist longer.
15. Enjoy.

"But Jake," you say, "Surely using a cookie cutter is wasteful, look at all that cookie stuff left over!"

Well, yes there is all that left over. Scoop the remains into a zip-lock bag and crush them. You now have homemade cookie crumble topping for the next time you have ice-cream sundaes. Pop the bag in the freezer and it'll keep for months.

If you wish to skip the cookie crumble, just cut the giant cookie into rectangles. I've used a rolling pizza cutter for this in the past, but obviously anything will do.

If you want the more traditional cookie shape, spoon small blobs onto the cookie sheat evenly sized and spaced. To do this, you'll also need to adjust your cooking time down to the 12 to 15 minutes range.