Chewy Sprinkle Cookies

Birthdays are a call for celebration - especially the milestone ages. And what says celebration more than funfetti/sprinkles? So of course I had to keep Carly's birthday sprinkle treats tradition going for her 18th birthday. I even found a sprinkle-themed card:

I looked through my entire cake batter and funfetti Pinterest board until I found what is probably the most appropriate treat I can bake for Carly: sprinkle cookies. The way the blogger at Pear Tree Kitchen described them, they're basically snickerdoodle cookies but rolled in sprinkles instead of a cinnamon-sugar mixture. For the sprinkles I decided to use jimmies since that's what I have on hand; however, the blogger used nonpareils and said you can use pretty much any kind of sprinkles.

Chocolate Mint Crinkles

Another one of my favorite cookies that we make around Christmastime is chocolate crinkle cookies. They're so chewy and chocolatey and delicious that I don't care how messy they are (which is saying something because I'm the baker who cleans as I work). One thing we've never thought to do, though, is add peppermint. Even without the internet to give us recipes with the exact amount, it's a pretty easy addition.

Which is why I decided to make peppermint crinkle cookies for work's usual Valentine's Day potluck. You see, we got some snow. Which lead to me staying close to home for about 4 days. During the first couple days I tried to use up two things: my packets of hot chocolate (because of the calories I don't drink it as often as I would like) and the almost-empty bottle of peppermint extract. Except using peppermint extract to make peppermint hot chocolate is A HORRIBLE IDEA! So with Monday off I decided to find a recipe and make the cookies in order to use up the extract (who says peppermint is only for Christmastime?). I ended up modifying a recipe from Betty Crocker's website. The recipe was for a chocolate crinkle version of the peanut butter blossoms (kinda like the peppermint thumbprint cookies I made once) except I left out the candy cane Hershey's Kisses.