Chocolate Chip Cookies Made With Lard

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Mint chocolate chip cookies with lard

Ingredients

• 1 cup lard or butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 3-3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/8 cup dried mint leaves
• 2 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt I use this one
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup chocolate chunks

Instructions

• In a large bowl, beat lard and sugars. Mix in eggs, vanilla, and maple syrup.
• Combine 3 cups flour, mint, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a separate bowl, then beat the flour mixture into the lard (or butter) mixture.
• Stir in chips and chocolate chunks.
• Preheat oven to 325°F.
• Place teaspoonfuls of dough on cookie sheets. No need to space out much, these cookies don't spread when they bake. But you will need to flatten them with a floured cup bottom or a fork if you prefer them to be flatter instead of thick and round. The lard will hold it's shape in a thicker mound if you don't flatten them. (Both ways makes for a delicious cookie, so don't stress over this.)
• Bake for 11-12 minutes, switching trays from top to bottom racks halfway through. (The cookies may appear a bit underdone, but their edges should just begin to turn golden brown.)

NOTES

• I render my lard and freeze it in butter-shaped molds so it’s super easy to use in place on butter in any recipe. Go here for more details about baking with lard.
• If you’re using butter instead of lard, you will need to chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before working with it. Add an additional 1⁄4 cup of flour if the dough doesn’t seem quite thick enough after refrigeration. (Before chilling, if I’m using butter in this recipe, my dough is always too gooey, but I resist the urge to keep adding flour because I have made these cookies too cake-like by doing that in the past.)
• If you’re using butter you may find you want to cook the cookies a few minutes longer and cool them completely on cookie sheets, where they’ll flatten, and their centers will harden slightly while on the tray. After they’ve cooled, they’re chewy and moist.
• For the mint, I use chocolate mint that I grow in our garden every summer. But any variety of mint is delicious in this recipe. Since I store my mint in the dried leaf form all winter long, I need to measure out about 1⁄4 cup of dried leaves and crush them in a mini food processor. This leaves me with about 1⁄8 cup of mint.
• While mint is optional in this recipe, I find I need the little extra “umpf.” I will admit lard does not pack the same taste punch as butter (I LOVE butter yall) but the little bit of mint makes a huge difference in the taste category. Most folks say they don’t even taste the mint in the cookies. (I agree; if I want Mint Chocolate Chip cookies, substitute the vanilla for 2 tsp of mint extract, in addition to the dried mint.)
• Chocolate chunks are also optional, of course, well I mean to most folks. I don’t see them as optional, cause I love the extra, bigger burst of chocolate in every cookie.
• If you want these to be mint chocolate chip cookies, you’ll love replacing 1 cup of the chips with mint carob chips… soooo good.
• While any salt will work just fine in this recipe, Redmonds salt is truly the best. It’s mined over 400 feet below ground, right here in the U.S. so it’s naturally protected from pollutants (not something you can say about salt mined from the ocean) and more than 60 trace minerals. If you want to try it out, use my code SWEETSALT to save 15% off your entire order, anytime.
• If you’re making these cookies with fresh flour, I substitute the 3 cups all-purpose flour with 2 1/2 cups of kamut flour. More about why I started milling my own flour here.

YIELDS ABOUT 4 DOZEN COOKIES