15 minute Thin Mints (3 ingredients, no bake, vegan)

A simple DIY thin mint girl scout cookie made using only three ingredients – oreos, peppermint oil and dark chocolate!

I had seen those DIY thin mint recipes in the past which used ritz crackers as the base. I’m sure that works quite well but (A) why would you pass up the chance for more chocolate and (B) it’s much easier to get oreos than ritz here in the UK.

vegan thin mints with dark chocolate coating, stacked up

Separating the oreos for the thin mints

The one long part of this recipe is twisting apart the oreos and removing the filling – it works better when the oreos are slightly warm as the filling is softer then. Having them at room temp will be fine, just make sure they’re not cold. You can either twist the cookies apart or use a butterknife to slice them apart then scrape off the filling. You can either use that filling to make some double stuf oreos (just spread onto a plain oreo and hey presto), eat the filling plain like some kind of buttercream monster OR get chuck it. It’s up to you!

Using whole oreos for thin mints

Of course, the alternative is that you leave the oreos whole and don’t remove the filling before coating them in chocolate. You’d end up with an overall thicker and sweeter cookie but it would be faster and simpler to do.

Peppermint extract vs peppermint oil

For the chocolate coating, a simple mixture of dark chocolate and peppermint oil is all you need. Make sure that the peppermint flavouring is NOT alcohol based or water based – it must be an oil based version – otherwise it will cause the chocolate to seize.

Tempering the chocolate for the coating

To get the super shiny, firm-set chocolate you see on the cookies here, you have to do a process called tempering. This is where you heat and cool the chocolate to a series of specific temperatures in order to encourage a certain formation of cocoa butter crystal to form in the chocolate which is very stable. It isn’t essential to the recipe, you can just melt and dip as you please, but you may notice some cocoa butter bloom on your cookies. This is mostly a visual thing although you may notice that the chocolate coating sets a bit soft.

Notes:

-For optimum twist-abilitiy of the oreos, make sure they’re at room temperature (it’s really difficult to separate them without breaking them when they’re cold!)

-If you want to temper the chocolate in a food processor, I have a tutorial here

-You don’t have to scrape the filling out of the oreo if you can’t be bothered; if you leave it on one half, it’ll just taste sweeter and less chocolatey, but it saves time.

-You can decorate the chocolate dipped oreos before the chocolate sets with sprinkles, Maldon salt, chopped nuts or a drizzle of white chocolate for some contrast!

-If you’re making these vegan, make sure your chocolate is vegan friendly 🙂

– you can use Newman O’s instead of Oreos or whichever chocolate cookie you desire! In some countries, Oreos contain whey powder meaning they’re not vegan so check the label properly.

DIY Thin Mints (3 ingredients, no bake, vegan)

A simple DIY thin mint (which is vegan friendly) made using only 3 ingredients oreos, dark chocolate and peppermint oil!
4.75 from 4 votes
Print Pin
Course: Cookies
Cuisine: American
Keywords: chocolate, peppermint, vegan
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 16 to 20 oreo cookies (or your favourite vegan chocolate cookie)
  • 7 to 10 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate finely chopped
  • 1 tsp peppermint oil (you can’t use alcohol-based extracts)

Instructions

  • Twist the oreos to separate them (see notes), and scrape off the cream filling (either discard the filling…or eat it, if you’re into that.)
  • Place 2/3 of the chocolate into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until almost fully melted then remove the bowl from the pan. Stir in the remaining 1/3 of finely chopped chocolate, mixing until full melted, then stir in the peppermint oil well.
  • Dip an oreo half in the melted chocolate, turn to coat using a fork. Use the fork to remove the oreo from the chocolate, tap it on the edge of the bowl a few times (to let excess chocolate drip off).
  • Transfer to a baking tray lined with baking paper. Repeat with all the oreo halves.
  • Leave at room temperature until set.
  • Store in an airtight container somewhere cool and out of direct sunlight for up to 2 weeks.
Tried this recipe?Let me know how it went! Mention @izyhossack or tag #topwithcinnamon!

163 thoughts on “15 minute Thin Mints (3 ingredients, no bake, vegan)”

  1. Love these! Alton’s method for tempering chocolate literally changed my life. It’s the greatest. thing. ever.

    Yay for Baguette-me-nots, boo for procrastinating. And the pressure. It’s the worst, isn’t it?

    • It made me incredibly excited when I found it! I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about it until so recently.

      Yes, yes and YES. arg the pressure. I wan’t it to leave me aloonnneee!

      P.S – I have major blog love for Oh, Ladycakes – you rule!

  2. ha! the build mode music brings back childhood memories for me too! That made me laugh! These look great – and easy – which makes them more great!

  3. yum! these look so delicious, if only i had some oreos… and i fully agree with you, ms mr is so amazing its ridiculous, i could listen to them all day! 🙂

  4. I make these at Xmas time with Ritz crackers and put crumbled candy cane pieces on top. Delicious and asked for year after year!

  5. These look AMAZING. I’m definitely going to have to try them. Such a great idea. Also, thanks for liking the roses!

  6. Oh yeah, this is WAY TOO EASY. Muwahahaha. I mean, the idea of being able to take an already existing cookie and improve it by dipping it in delicious minty chocolate…genius. (Now, how will I resist doing this with ALL cookies?)

    I spent most of high school and all of college coming to terms with the fact that I’m a natural procrastinator. Sometimes you just need that extra pressure to focus, you know? It can be really hard to absorb information when you’re working on something before you “technically” need to, as far as the laws of space and time are concerned. Your mind starts wandering to all of the fun things you could be doing, and then before you know it, you’ve flipped through an entire chapter of something and you don’t remember a thing! (:

    (Also, I just found out a couple of months ago that Oreos were vegan. I didn’t believe it at first!)

    • That is the ethos of my life – does it taste good? –> yes –> dip it in chocolate = more goodness for this moi

      That is exactly me. Even little things – like how it literally takes me a few days to even reply to comments on my blog, because I need the pressure of being like “oh crap, everyone’s gunna think I don’t care if I don’t respond after 3 days – type, Izy, TYPE!”. I think it is a space/time law, it just…happens,

      start working and then before I know it: it’s 9pm, i’m on pinterest and watching Community.

      Ahhhh, I know right!? I was mega surprised too! If I ever decide to go vegan, they will probably become my go-to dessert

  7. BUST magazine had a similar idea using ritz crackers (so now I have a Costco sized package of Ritz crackers)- this is even better! Wish my Dad was still alive so I could test his ability to discern GS Thin Mint vs vegan thin mint.
    Thanks!

    • YES! I’ve seen that, but I was in the opposite situation – no crackers, lotsa oreos :))) Now that sound like some skill!

  8. Oh Izy you’re breaking my heart. Three ingredients–I was all set to jump into the kitchen to make these, but I have neither oreos nor mint extract! Such a tease. But gorgeous photos, really! You probably get this question a lot, but what kind of camera do you use? I just checked out your about page but didn’t see it anywhere…

    • ahhh, sorryyyyy! I think people think that’s my main job sometimes, literally to just to show people food, and make them cry; I promise it’s not my intention haha 🙂 Thanks! I use a Canon Rebel T2i since October (I think) and beforehand the Canon 400D – and to be honest, I can’t really tell any difference apart from the fact that my new camera has a higher resolution, which isn’t really noticeable when you’re resizing the images down to half the number pixels anyways

  9. Beautiful photos!! But the recipe says vegan and Oreos are not vegan 🙁
    There is animal fat in Oreos and many vegetarians won’t eat them. Newmans Own are good though… But I think also not vegan…

    • Thanks kat 🙂
      According to PETA, they are vegan and I know because I was so surprised about it that I read the ingredient list! I can’t see any mention of animal fats or any other animal products, although I do agree that the sugar they use may not be vegan which could put off some strict vegans :/ perhaps the recipe used by nabisco is different in some countries. You can check out the links for yourself if you still don’t believe me haha :
      http://www.nabiscoworld.com/Brands/ProductInformation.aspx?Product=4400000820

      http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/accidentally-vegan.aspx

      • It’s the whey powder (milk product) used in the US ingredient list which makes the chocolate Oreo not vegan. The vanilla Oreo are vegan though… but I’m not sure how well they would work for thin mints.
        Also depending on the brand of chocolate chips used, they may not be vegan: milkfat, lactose, and the sugars (filtered with bone char) are the main problems there.

        • Refer to previous comments to see the links for PETA and the ingredients for Oreos (which I have just triple checked and don’t contain whey powder).
          Ps I say to use vegan chocolate if you need to in the actual recipe.

          • Just a quick note to say Oreos in Europe are not vegan as they contain whey powder. I don’t think the Oreos in the US have whey powder though, making them vegan. As always, check the label and substitute with your favourite chocolate cookies if Oreos aren’t vegan where you are.

            Great recipe! Looking forward to making them. 🙂

  10. I think you can also use those Nabisco Chocolate Wafers, its thinner and larger but you don’t have to scrape off any fillings.

    • sadly, I don’t have access to them in the UK :'( I just had a heck tonne of oreos that needed using up, so I thought “why not?” 😉

      • By the way – i love your blog – came here thanks to JTB site and WOW – I’m so impressed. Keep up the good work. Your photos are gorgeous!

  11. It only gets better, Izy–better, as in one day it will hit you over the head like a massive homocidal meteorite that nobody in the world really knows what they’re doing, and then you will sit back in your comfy chair, guffaw to yourself, and stuff your face with a bunch of baked goods because you figured it out before everyone else around you. (Or at least, I’m still waiting for this moment to happen; it’s midterm/final-project formulation season, and there hasn’t been a second to breathe!).

    • I am literally just trying to focus on that now, it’s okay, its allll going to be fiiiinnneee, there will always be cookies and hot chocolate 😉
      Arg, what a nightmare! Luckily its back to calm-ville for me atm, that is until Easter, when I’ll just be dying from revision for my exams… oh well, at least I have a few. weeks. left.

  12. Wow! So easy and so impressive. These look amazing and are sure to get my through Girl Scout Season! Thanks for posting, vegan cookies are the best!

    • thanks! Sadly there’s no girl scout season…and no girl scouts for that matter… for me to enjoy in London, but luckily there are PLENTY of oreos so I can make these alllllll the time 😛

  13. LOVELY! I have a recipe (in my blog) for very elaborate thin mints. They are delicious but they’re a lot of work and not suitable for a quick cookie recipe. I will try these very soon! I like the oreo idea. I bet chocolate wafers would work too. By the way, I see you’re doing lots of chemistry work, I’m a PhD student in chemistry! 🙂

    • Thanks!! haha, yeah I was considering making thin mints from scratch, but I had NO TIIIMMEEEE! I don’t realy know about chocolate wafers, we dont get them in the UK (…nor do we get thin mints, which is the no.1 reason I made these ahaha). I love chemistry (well, most of it…naming organic compounds is pretty dang satisfying), and I’m *hopefully* applying to do biomedicine at university next year!

  14. BRILLIANT!!! Totally gonna smuggle some mint extract to Argentina and make these bad boys while I reminisce about Brownie days…. Gracias!

  15. I just made these and dare I say, they’re even better than thin mints! Love this. Thanks for the recipe!
    and BTW, your site is absolutely lovely.

  16. Such a lovely post! I tried to make these tonight, but had a tough time with the chocolate. For some reason, mine caked up and I wasn’t able to get it in liquid form. They’re still good, just not what I pictured. Any tips?

    • Thank you! Were you tempering the chocolate? You may have heated it up too much (In my own experience, I’ve had chocolate that’s gone all thick and kinda dry if I over cook it when melting). Also some brands of chocolate realllllly don’t like being melted e.g. Cadburys just doesn’t melt, it stays solid or goes lumpy and thick :/ that’s all I can think of… Sorry!

      • I just did this myself tonight. Do you have any experience with Nestle? I tried mixing Nestle and Hersey’s, which probably didn’t help. I think I’ll stick to Hersey’s for round two.

    • I had the same problem, then I found out you can’t add alcohol based extracts/flavourings to plain melted chocolate, only oil based. Extracts are alcohols, flavourings are oils. Chocolate will seize up when mixed with an alcohol, but if you make a chocolate mixture like a ganache the extract should be fine. I tried this recipe twice, tempering the chocolate and being very careful not overheat, and had the same results both times as soon as I mixed the mint in. I ended up making yummy mint chocolate sandwich cookies with the thick stuff instead.
      Afterward I tried mixing the mint into a ganache out of curiosity and it went perfectly fine. A true ganache would be too melty for this, but I wonder about mixing a little bit of cream or something in, just enough to make the chocolate more forgiving?

  17. Your photos are gorgeous! That chocolate looks so luscious! Definitely making these for my dad when I’m home from school.

  18. Wait… are you saying that you’re in the IB? And by that, do you mean that you use this blog as CAS?
    Cause I’m in Pre-IB at the moment and I’ve been thinking about doing the same and it would be so much fun to do that but I don’t really know how it would work out.
    Anyway, fun!

  19. I found these on pinterest and tried them last night, I wanted to whip something up quick so I melted the chocolate (didn’t temper) and the second I added the mint extract the chocolate completely firmed up and became the consistency of a thick ganache. Trying to gently re-melt it on a double boiler didn’t work at all so I gave up on the idea of thin mints and rolled the chocolate into little truffles and coated them in crushed up oreo bits. They turned out super delicious so all was not lost, but I think perhaps tempering might be very important and recommended.

    • I think it was probably your mint extract – if it was water based (mine is quite oily to the touch), then (as you probably know) it will cause the chocolate to seize and thicken! It’s a pain, haha, but thanks for letting me know so I can add a note to the recipe 🙂 I’m glad you salvaged them 🙂

  20. Brilliant. A food blogger in LONDON! Thanks for the heads up about Balthazar in Covent Garden. I was there just yesterday with some friends from New York. Most of the bloggers I follow are based west coast USA, and whilst I’d totally like to move there, for now, enjoy pounding the cold wet streets of London in search of food heaven. I must remember to blog more about those venue gems I find…

  21. Omg these look amazing. I thought you were talking about our Covent Garden market in London Ontario Canada. 🙂

  22. I use Ritz crackers instead and they taste just like a THIN MINT AND LOOK JUST LIKE ONE> I use chocolate chips and peppermint extract and a NEW TWEESER to pick up the cracker out of the choc mixture and then lay on waxed paper and into the refrigerator. EVERYONE loves these!

    • If you had actually bothered to read my replies to comments from other people, you would have seen that I said that I agree that the sugar may not be strictly vegan (even without people raising an issue with the sugar).

      • Also there is rennet in the icing BUT these sound amazing and I WILL make them….your pictures are so lovely!!

  23. oof. also. your sentence/paragraph on pressure and such…..
    “Suddenly, it’s all about the future, what the heck you’re doing with your life now, for reals – your A2 choices, extended essay title, positions of responsibility for next year, university courses.”

    ………hit home. oy vey. totally.

  24. My mom used to use ritz crackers instead of the oreo wafers. it sounds weird, but they’re delicious!!

  25. Does the melted chocolate not seeze up whenever you add the mint extract? Sometimes when you add liquid to melted chocolate it will seeze and I was just wondering if that happened to anyone?

    • I used an oil based extract so it doesn’t seize when you add it to the chocolate. I also used high quality, chocolate with a 70% cocoa content so it melts really well, it’s awesome for coating things because it stays nice and fluid, whereas crappy quality, semisweet chocolate chips will be terrible and most likely too thick once melted to nicely coat the cookies.

  26. Hi Izy, I’m Sonia, Italian food blogger, sorry for my bad English, I want tell you that I have included the link of this recipe (which I liked very much) in the section on my blog dedicated to “10 ways to make” (“10 Modi di Fare”) Oreo recipes. The post is ‘Tortine al cioccolato senza forno’ I hope not to bother you, have a nice day.
    Sonia

  27. Unfortunately, not all Oreo cookies are vegan. They use different plants and suppliers across the country to make their cookies and some suppliers and plants use animal bone char to refine the sugar they use to make Oreos- so if you a true Vegan you would have to steer away from them. 🙁 However, I love the recipe and I am not a true Vegan so I am going to try these- thank you!

  28. Making my third batch tomorrow. Way to good and way to easy to make. And mine are gluten free.

  29. Let me get this straight…

    You buy cookies, remove 1/3 of the cookie, then dip them in chocolate to produce a cookie.

    Wouldn’t it be easier just to buy thin mint cookies? I mean if you’re already at the store and are buying Oreos, just take 3 steps to your right or left and voila, there’s your cookies.

    An inane recipe.

    • Well actually, Sarah, I live in the UNITED KINGDOM. Not America. You know not everybody I the world lives in the US and if you actually bothered to look at anything on my blog or social media about me you would realise that. Here in this wonderful country we don’t have girl scout cookies or even chocolate wafer cookies. The closest option is Oreos. The recipe is to use up a lot of Oreos which you may have lying around if you decide that you’re not in the mood for Oreos and would prefer, for some reason, a thin mint at that time. So no, not an inane recipe at all. Thanks for your words though, you really know how to piss off a 17 year old Brit.

  30. There is a lot a varieties too… Use vanilla wafers and banana extract. Good also with coconut and almond extract or cherry or even lemon…. yum

  31. I am thinking you should twist off the top part(the part without the creamy center) of all the cookies in the package and make tin mints with those. Take the creamy center and bottom cookie and apply it to a second bottom cookie creating a double stuffed cookie. Eat the double stuff with whipped cream and the thin mints with ice cold milk, YUM

  32. I’m excited to try these! But I think one should add butter or shortening to the chocolate to make it more liquid and easier to dip, no? I’ve melted just chips before and the chocolate is very thick, and hardens quickly.

    Most recipes I’ve seen that require chocolate dipping, also require adding an ingredient to the chocolate such as mentioned above.

    Thanks!
    M

    • if you use good quality 70% chocolate, it’s thin enough for dipping. If you use crappy quality semisweet chocolate it isn’t good for dipping

      • You are so totally right..I had no problem with my very high quality chocolate.. I am so excited with these cookies… You are a genius

  33. Always amazes me how some people love to be the big “know it all “expert when posting comments. This recipe looks fab using Oreos and I can’t wait to make them. Thank you for the recipe!

  34. I was wondering if any of you had experience refrigerating or freezing these? I want to make up a big batch but the gas heat in my house can be brutal; how long would they keep?
    Btw I love the simplicity of this recipe. Great idea- I found this via Pinterest and don’t do the blog thing often- is all this negativity normal?!!!

  35. Hi there,

    I really love the tin looking cups that you used for the food, any idea where I might find some? If not, do you know what they may be called so that I may look them up? I’ve been looking for some like this for quite some time and I think I’ve Googled just about every way of saying tin cup you can imagine!

  36. Could you use those chocolate wafers instead? They are not as thick as Oreos, but at least you wouldn’t have the fuss/waste of the cream.

  37. Please note re Oreos (in US)
    http://www.vegetalou.com/2011/05/30/email-oreos-kraft-nabisco/

    in short, a response, directly from makers of Oreos:
    ” Kraft has several sugar suppliers. Some of our suppliers DO use the animal-derived natural charcoal (also known as « bone char ») in their cane sugar refining process and some suppliers DO NOT use this process.

    Since we may use any of the sugar suppliers at any given time in production, we cannot give a definite answer as to whether or not bone char was used in the sugar refining process of a particular product.”

  38. Ótimo agora é que vai ser!
    Vão desaparecer os oreos todos
    Bjs e mais receitas destas
    Obrigada!

  39. Wow…I was so impressed, Made these today and can hardly wait to serve them at my restaurant or next catering job. Thank you..Thank you..Thank you

  40. ohmygoodness–LOVE this!! Thanks for sharing this super simple yet incredibly perfect thin mints alternative. Love love love your photography, and you hooked me with the phrase “last minute pressure blast.” Yep–that’s me too.

  41. Your thin mint recipe is great! I added the mint extract before I melted the chocolate and used almond bark and they turned out perfect.You don’t need to temper the chocolate if you put the almond bark and mint extract together and then melt Thanks for the wonderful recipe!

  42. The kids and I made these for Santa, my co-workers and our family. They were great! I mentioned them with a link on my blog.

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