Grasshopper Cookie Bars

I was inspired by my friend  Kristen who posted to her facebook that she was making Grasshopper Cookies.  I remembered that I had saved a recipe a while back that was for Grasshopper Cookie Bars and with the pretty green color, deemed them worthy of being this year's St. Patrick's Day treat.  Better yet was the fact that I had almost every single ingredient on hand to make these.  And, I'm jumping it ahead of a few other recipes that need posting in case you want to make it too. 

Now, I love me a strong mint flavor so I went ahead and doubled the amount of peppermint extract that the original recipe called for.  I suggest you do the same and am reflecting this change, below (it wasn't overly minty so no worries!).  I had considered making brownies from scratch but ended up having a coupons for the cookies that were actually listed in the original recipe so bough those for $1 instead.  Why mess with the simplicity?  Super simple and super addicting.  Want to make this recipe even easier?  I don't see why you couldn't just buy a tub of vanilla frosting and add in the peppermint extract and green food coloring.  These cookie bars taste like thin mints but a million times better.  I mean let's all agree - anything homemade and with frosting to boot is automatically better!  Oh, and about that frosting, it doesn't dry/harden so you can't stack them which was a bit annoying but don't worry, these will get eaten right up anyway so no need to store!

So, top of the morning to ya and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

PS:  Does anybody know why they are called Grasshopper anyway?  Is it just because they're green??

Grasshopper Cookie Bars
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Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 15 mins
Total Time: 1 hour
Yields: 36 bar cookies (You can cut the pieces larger or smaller to get more or less pieces.  I usually cut mine in 4 rows by 8 columns in a 9x13 pan so usually end up with 32 of them myself.)

Ingredients

For the Bars

• 1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® double chocolate chunk cookie mix
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 egg

For the Frosting

• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 small package (3 oz) cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons milk (omitted but add in for a thinner frosting)
• 1/2 teaspoon mint extract
• 3 to 4 drops green food color (more or less to get desired tint of green)

For the Chocolate Drizzle

• 1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottom of 13x9-inch pan with cooking spray.
2. In large bowl, stir all Bar ingredients until soft dough forms. Press into pan; bake 15 minutes. Cool about 10 minutes.
3. In large bowl, stir all Frosting ingredients until smooth. Spread over bars.
4. In small microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate drizzle ingredients on High 30 seconds; stir until smooth. Drizzle over frosting.
5. Refrigerate 30 minutes or until set. For bars, cut into 9 rows by 4 rows. Store covered in refrigerator.  

Source: Betty Crocker