Two of the desserts I made for the holiday season were inspired by a find at my local grocery store. Andes, the company that makes those thin mint rectangular wafers, makes two interesting dessert ingredients: Creme de Menthe (mint chocolate) chunks and Peppermint (white chocolate peppermint) chunks. I used these tidbits to top some of my desserts.

Mint Chocolate Brownies
The mint chocolate bits were sprinkled on top of chocolate frosted brownies.

White Chocolate Peppermint Bells
The peppermint white chocolate chunks were sprinkled on top of white frosted bell-shaped sugar cookies (with a few other red sprinkles for color). Here’s the sugar cookie recipe.

Both minty desserts are very tasty and festive for holidays and snowy winter days.

A couple of things to note: The color of both types of chocolate pieces was more dull than shown on the Andes packaging. (I heard the amusing comment that the white chocolate peppermint pieces looked like bacon bits.) I only used about 1/4 of the package for each dessert option — a little goes a long way with these minty chocolatey crumbles.