This is a recipe for homemade Thin Mints and they are natural. They might remind you of girl-scouts, but obviously they are a lot more inexpensive.

Chocolate Wafers

8 ounces organic butter, room temp.

1 cup organic powdered sugar 

1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract

1 cup coco powder

3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt 

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

Chocolate Peppermint Coating

1 pound good quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped natural peppermint oil to taste

Preheat your oven to 350. Racks in the middle zone.

Make the cookie dough: In a mixer cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and cream some more, scrapping the sides of the bowl a couple of times if necessary. Stir in the vanilla extract and then salt and coco powder. Mixed until the coco powder is mixed in and the batter is smooth and creamy, sort of like a thick frosting. Add the whole wheat pastry powder and just until the batter is no longer dusty looking, it might still be a bit crumbly and thats o.k. You don't want to over mix or you will get tough cookies.

Turn the dough out onto the counter, gather it into a ball, and kneed it just once or twice to bring it together into one nice, smooth mass. Place the large ball of dough into a large plastic bag and flatten into a disk roughly 3/4-inch thick. Place the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill.

Rollout and bake: Remove the dough from the freezer and roll out really thin, remember how thin Thin Mints are? Thats how thin you need your dough about 1/8 inch thick. You can either roll out in between 2 pieces of plastic, or coat your counter with flour and rolling pin and do it that way. Shape out the cookies with a 1 1/2 inch cookie cutter. Place cookies on a parchment lined sheet and cook for 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on a baking rack if you got one.

Make the peppermint coating: While the cookies are in the oven you can get the coating coating ready. I use a makeshift double boiler to melt the chocolate. Slowly melt the chocolate until it is glossy and smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract. If you think the chocolate needs a little bit more peppermint add a drop or 2 at a time - but don't go overbord.

Finishing the cookies: You are going to coat the cookies one at a time placing them on a parchment-lines baking sheet to set. Place the cookies into the chocolate one at a time using a fork, make sure it gets fully coated. Lift the cookies out of the chocolate with the fork and bang the fork on the side of the pan to drain any extra chocolate off the cookie. You are after a thin, even coating of chocolate. Place on the aforementioned prepared baking sheet, and repeat for the rest of the cookies. Place the cookies in the refrigerator or freezer to set. They will set at room temperature, it just takes much longer, and I prefer them straight out of the freezer anyways.