Healthy Skinny Minties (Homemade Thin Mints)
Healthy Skinny Minties (aka Homemade Thin Mints)! They’re crunchy, they’re sweet, they’re chocolatey, and they’re minty fresh. You’d never know they’re made without the refined flour, trans fats, and white sugar.
I’ll take a dozen thank you very much 😉
Making a healthy, homemade version of these classic Girl Scout cookies has been on my Baking To-Do list for years. Yes, years. I put it off because I was intimidated.
What if the cookies weren’t crunchy enough?
What if the coating wasn’t minty enough?
How would they compare to the originals?
But seriously, Jessica? It’s a damn cookie! Chillllaaaax.
Anyways, I finally made this recipe because my best friend eats Thin Mints like they’re a major food group. My fear of making homemade Thin Mints that weren’t exactly like the originals was ridiculous. Who cares if they’re the same, as long as they taste good, right? With your first bite, these Healthy Skinny Minties are crunchy. You instantly get the hit of mint, then the rich chocolate, and the perfect, non-overpowering sweetness.
They’re not exactly like the Girl Scouts version, but they’re still amazing. So amazing that I ate five (or six…) during the food photography session alone. I mean, why not? They don’t have the dangerous hydrogenated oils, unhealthy white sugar and bad-for-you bleached flour like the Girl Scouts version.
They’re so good, so healthy, and so holiday-appropriate with the mint and chocolate, I MUST GIFT THEM TO EVERYONE I KNOW! I mean, wouldn’t you be thrilled to get a freshly baked batch of these Skinny Minties? 🙂
Healthy Skinny Minties (Homemade Thin Mints)
Ingredients
Chocolate Cookies:
- 120g (1 cup) Oat Flour
- 144g (¾ cup) Granulated Erythritol
- 40g (½ cup) Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder
- 1 tsp Double-Acting Baking Powder
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 80g (⅓ cup) Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 42g (3 tbs) Coconut Oil
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Chocolate Coating:
- 4 oz Dark Chocolate (I used Sugar-Free Chocolate)
- 14g (1 tbs) Organic Raw Cacao Butter (or Coconut Oil)
- 2 tsp Peppermint Flavor
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together the oat flour, erythritol, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
- In a large microwave-safe bowl, add the almond milk, coconut oil and vanilla extract. Microwave at 15-second intervals, stirring between each one, until the coconut oil is melted.
- Dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir together until fully mixed. Dump the dough onto some plastic wrap. Pat the dough into a ball, then form into a log shape. Wrap the dough with the plastic wrap, then form into a smooth log.
- Refrigerate the dough for 1-1½ hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- With a sharp knife, slice the log into cookies. The dough is slightly delicate, so the bottoms of some slices may crumble off. It's really easy to just stick it back on though!
- Put the cookie dough rounds onto the prepared cookie sheet and bake for 11 minutes. The cookies will be sponge-like right now, but don't worry, they firm up as they cool!
- When the cookies are completely cool, add the dark chocolate and cacao butter to a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at 30-second intervals, stirring between each one, until melted. Stir in the peppermint flavor. Dip the cookies into the melted chocolate, tap off the excess, then place back on the cookie sheet. Refrigerate until completely firm. Serve and enjoy! Keeps for ~5 days.
And are you curious to see the ingredients inside the Girl Scouts Thin Mints? Look no further:
Ughhhh whyyyyy??
1st ingredient: refined white flour.
2nd ingredient: bleached white sugar.
3rd ingredient: hydrogenated oils (aka dangerous trans fats).
*shakes head*
I’m so glad I finally got around to making these healthy homemade Thin Mints. If I weren’t gifting them to friends and family, I would definitely probably eat the entire batch… 😉
Enjoy!
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
These look like a dream! Thin mints were always my favorite (especially when they came out of the freezer), but I can’t even tell you how many years it has been since I’ve had them! Making this ASAP!
I’ve never tried Thin Mints out of the freezer! Sounds delicious though 😉
Hope you like the recipe!
-Jess
Okay, that’s it, you’ve convinced me I DEFINITELY need to come to the restaurant where you work now. Oatmeal creme pies?! I used to LOVE those Little Debbie treats as a kid! Hahaha, and yes indeed, it’s just a damn cookie. You crack me up. Oooh! If you opened a bakery, I would certainly visit ALL the time. Dream big, girl!
Next time we hang out and I work the day of I’m gonna bring you an Oatmeal Creme Pie 😀
And if I open a bakery you will get free desserts FO LIFE! Blogger/friend discount 😉
May i ask what Erythritol is i live in Australia if can buy it here where would I get bit from
Hi Vicki! Erythritol is a natural sweetener — it looks and tastes just like sugar, but without the calories, carbohydrates and sugar. You can certainly replace this with another granulated sweetener, like evaporated cane juice or sucanat. I wouldn’t recommend using regular white sugar though.
I get my erythritol online from Amazon because it’s way way way cheaper than in stores… but it might be different in Australia. Hope this helps! 😀
-Jess
THESE LOOK AMAZING!
Will be trying them this holiday! Thanks Jessica!
YAY! Thanks so much Vivian! I hope you like the recipe 😀
I used to eat thin mints by the box when I was younger, no joke! These ones look exactly like the original and Im sure they taste amazing!! Good for you for finding your passion! I hope it all works out for you 🙂
Oh gosh I was the same way but with Samoas instead of Thin Mints. Those cookies literally disappear before peoples’ eyes, they’re just TOO sugary/addicting.
And thank you SO much for saying that, you rock! 😀
-Jess
Vegan thin mints! These look amazing!
-Molly
Thanks so much Molly! 😀
-Jess
I adore you’re recipes 😀 😀 😀
Hello! These looks fantastic! By the way, did you know you can dip Ritz crackers in Andes thin mints and they taste exactly like Girl Scout cookies? I don’t know if this is vegan or not as I never checked out the ingredients for Andes mints and the Ritz crackers. I have fooled everyone with these cookies!
I haven’t tried that, but those DIY Thin Mints sound super easy to make!! 😀
Wow these look so delicious!!
I have to try these I’m paleo, are these dairy free?
As long as you use dairy-free chocolate (the chocolate linked in the recipe is vegan), then the recipe will be dairy free! 😀
-Jess
when i went to cut the cookies they kept crumbling and not staying into a cookie shape, i followed the recipe exactly and ive done this a few times.
The dough should look like the pictures in the recipe box. My cookie dough “log” crumbled slightly too, but it should be easy enough to form back into the cookie shape. If your dough is way way too crumbly, mix it with some extra almond milk, added 1 tsp at a time until it comes together 🙂
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Rly good and all but thin mint from the package have 160 calories for 4 thin mints and yours have 160 for 3…
It’s not all about calories, it’s about the quality of ingredients used! 🙂
If you’d rather have an extra cookie but also the bleached flour, bleached sugar, and trans fats, I guess that’s ultimately up to you…
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Looks like a great recipe! Where do you purchase your peppermint flavor? Is it an extract or essential food grade oil? Thank you!
I use Simply Organic’s peppermint flavor, which is a food-grade oil meant for cooking and baking: http://amzn.to/2yYdMMU
Hope this helps! 🙂
Oh emm gee Jessica your cursive on the ziplock bag…. soooooo beautifully written!! I wish I could write half as nice as that.
I’m an ardent follower of your recipes but only today I thought of googling for GS thin mints and of course I was hoping you have them on your site. I just skimmed through the post, haven’t really digested it yet but I had to say something about that nice handwriting first haha..
Awwww thank you SO, so much! I’ve always been self conscious about my hand writing so I try really hard to make it look somewhat legible sometimes 😉
I’m glad you like my recipes! I hope you get a chance to make these thin mints, they’re suuuuuper yummy!
Are these larger than regular Thin Mints? I love that they are GF, vegan, etc. but nutritionally 3 of them are the same number of calories, with more fat, than 4 regular thin mints. The lack of sugar is great, but curious if the cookies end up bigger and that’s the reason for the serving size? I would think the lack of sugar would bring the calories down.
Thanks!
Yep, these are definitely bigger than the Girl Scouts version (simply because smaller ones would yield a ton more and be annoying to coat in chocolate) 😉
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Can I substitute almond flour for oat flour?
I’m afraid not. Almond flour is really grainy and doesn’t stick together well like oat flour.