Pressure.
It’s something, I could probably avoid 90% of the time by not procrastinating the time away.
I know I could avoid it, I know that future-Izy will hate past-Izy for not doing the work, yet I still find that sometimes, that ‘last minute pressure blast’ is the only way I can make myself work efficiently.
But then there’s also that pressure that has no pin-pointable deadline when you know it’ll be over – can I call mine the mid-sixth-form-crisis?
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.
A career.
dijkfhgsdlf
I just felt like I needed to pause time last week after thinking about that plus chemistry coursework plus biology coursework plus my deadline for my art coursework.
aaaaand that’s why I’ve been a little absent recently!
It’s not like I wasn’t baking – oh ho ho, believe me, baking is a major form of procrastination in my life – I just didn’t have the energy to sit in front of Lightroom adjusting exposure and contrast levels for 100 photos, which led to this post not being finished :’(
But I don’t return empty handed! During my procrastination timez, I’ve accumulated a few link-loves – or Monday ‘me gusta’ s if you will 
- Nostalgic much!? These tunes bring back so many memories! The Sims was a major part of my childhood, and I ‘aint ever forgetting that buy mode song.
- CALLING ALL LONDONERS! Balthazar is opening in Covent Garden (hopefully) next week – the restaurant is supposedly taking reservations for the 16th of February, and the bakery a few days before!
- I’m so freaking excited for MS MR’s new album to come out in May, you cannot even believe. They have been my absolute favourite band since I downloaded ‘Hurricane’ last summer. You can hear ‘Fantasy’ which is gunna be on the new album here. (be prepared for some pretty awesome music videos)
- These frosting roses are adorable! I’m so smitten!
- It snowed in London (not enough for a snow day, and too much to mean I couldn’t cycle to school – sad times), and my friend captured it when she recorded this gorgeous cover song
- Baguette-me-nots. Genius.
- “Pizza, unlike old coca-cola, is best served flat”. So much wisdom, so much wine.
So anywho, I also made these quick thin mints as a way to snazz up some oreos. I’d seen those DIY thin mints made with crackers before, but I had always thought that using oreos would probably be 1000% better. It was.
And I also made a slightly different variation (I’ll probably post it sometime this week) with white chocolate, that you can see in that last photo!
I love these because they’re simple, quick, tasty and look pretty elegant too!
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 cba; 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
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.)
Melt (and temper, if you can be bothered - see notes) the chocolate, then stir in the mint extract 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) and transfer to a lined cookie sheet.
Leave at room temperature until set.
http://www.topwithcinnamon.com/2013/02/15-minute-thin-mints-3-ingredients-no-bake-vegan.html
{ 79 comments… read them below or add one }
Such a fun treat and I LOVE the styling.
thank you!!
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!
ah, this is brilliant!! best of both worlds in my opinion!
thanks! totally is
Beautiful photos!
thanks Katherine
x
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!
it conjures up so. many. emotions! Such a good reminder of that childhood felling :’) Thaaaank youu
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!
thank you! oh gahd, yes, I think that I probably have done that once or twice..
I make these at Xmas time with Ritz crackers and put crumbled candy cane pieces on top. Delicious and asked for year after year!
so addictive, right!?
These look AMAZING. I’m definitely going to have to try them. Such a great idea. Also, thanks for liking the roses!
thanks
No problema, they’re gorgeous!
nom nom….. they look delicious! big fan of your blog!
xxxFiC.
thank you!!
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
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!
Totally genius. I’ve never thought of doing thin mints this way…
haha thanks
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
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.
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!
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.
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
Thin mints in 15 minutes??? Oh, that is DANGEROUS.
I know right, major hazard
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!
BRILLIANT!!! Totally gonna smuggle some mint extract to Argentina and make these bad boys while I reminisce about Brownie days…. Gracias!
ive never seen vegan chocolate before…
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=vegan+chocolate
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.
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.
Your photos are outstanding!
Your photos are gorgeous! That chocolate looks so luscious! Definitely making these for my dad when I’m home from school.
Thank You Jesus!!!
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!
I’m doing A-levels, but we have to do an extended essay
Good luck though! x
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 
Oreo cookies are NOT vegan, so this recipie is NOT vegan.
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
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…
Omg these look amazing. I thought you were talking about our Covent Garden market in London Ontario Canada.
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!
Oreo cookies are not vegan because Kraft has verified that they use animal bone char in some of their sugar processing.
You can find out more information about that here:
http://ihopeitsvegan.com/entries/centrykraft.html
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!!
Love your photos – gorgeous!
yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss i am making these tonight 100000%
awesome. just. awesome.
jamie
inconsistency rang the horse
Double cookie night, I’m feelin it.
Ugh I know right, life…
Thank youuu!
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.
Rather than removing the cream filling, I would dip the entire oreo!
Haha yeah there’s always that, too!
This looks so delicious! I want to try it
Thank you!!
I do these except with vanilla wafers instead of Oreos. Tastes just like the thin mints.
My mom used to use ritz crackers instead of the oreo wafers. it sounds weird, but they’re delicious!!
gorgeous!
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.
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
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!
What a great idea! Can’t wait to make these! My family is going to flip
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