Thin Mint Brownies with Minted Cream Cheese

For the brownies:
Preheat oven to 350ºF.

In a heat resistent bowl, combine chopped chocolates and butter. Place over a double boiler with barely simmering water, stirring the chocolate and butter until they are both just melted. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, salt, vanilla, and sugar. Whisk in melted chocolate. Add in cocoa powder and combine. With a rubber scraper, fold in flour. Lastly, fold in chopped Thin Mint cookies.

Pour into a foil-lined 8×8 inch baking pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Set on cooling rack to cool for 2 hours when done baking.

For the cream cheese topping:
In a stand mixer, beat together cream cheese, powdered sugar, mint extract and green food coloring. Tint cream cheese to desired color. Place in a bowl and refrigerate until ready to frost completely cooled brownies.

For the cookie layer:
Roughly chop Thin Mint cookies.

For the final assembly:
Remove brownies from baking pan, and gently remove foil lining. Evenly spread tinted cream cheese mixture over the top. Gently press chopped Thin Mint cookie crumbles into the cream cheese mixture, just until they are fixed in place. Cut into 2×2 inch squares. Serve.

(Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Brownies.)