I never thought I would be the type of person who makes her own ice cream. This idea changed when I was diagnosed as lactose-intolerant as a child and later even more so when Trevor and I started dating.

Back when I was diagnosed, there wasn’t a lot of dairy-free food options like there are now. So for a good number of years, I relied on taking those funny tasting Lactaid pills so I wouldn’t have to give up my love of cheese, chocolate and most importantly ice cream. Social events like birthday parties were always a little weird and I soon became known as that kid who had to pop pills in order to eat a slice of pizza or birthday cake.

Years later I was in university, I was on a strict budget and as I slowly stopped taking (or forgetting to buy) the pills, I found that I was able to tolerate eating dairy in small to medium doses. Today I no longer have to take the pills, but since I started dating Trevor, I also don’t purchase as many dairy products since I’m usually stuck eating it myself. When I do buy ice cream or pizza, I tend to feel a little guilty when I eat it in front of him. Food isn’t really that fun unless you get to share.

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Despite my large collection of cookie recipes on She Bakes Here, there is one type that I don’t make very often, and that is whoopie pies. The last time I tried to make them was back in 2011 during my first months of blogging. This was also when I was really into making healthy versions of everything, even if it didn’t always taste very good. One of my more common substitutions was full whole wheat flour in the place of regular all-purpose flour and in the end, without fail, the dough would always be dense, resulting in heavier cupcakes, cakes and cookies. I know I had good intentions with my first whoopie pie cookies (made for a bake sale no less….ugggh), but I knew that if I was to try making them again, I would have to ditch the healthy substitutions.

I’m not familiar with any bakeries in Toronto that sell whoopie pies, so making these cookies was definitely a treat. I’ve seen cookbooks dedicated solely to the different varieties that are out there, but seeing as how it’s the holiday season, I felt the need to further exhaust my favourite mint and chocolate flavour combination. Besides, who can turn down what essentially is a beautiful fluffy mountain of mint icing sandwiched between two soft, chocolate cake-like cookies. I’m not even a huge fan of chocolate cake and I’ve already proclaimed my undying love to these cookies.

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A couple days ago, my Dad sent me an email appropriately titled “Its here!!!!!” with two photos of my parents’ front deck covered in between 2-3 feet of snow. As much as living and working in Toronto can sometimes drive me crazy, I will take the winter here any day. I’m yet to see a flake of snow this season (knock on wood), but that’s not to say that it hasn’t been cold. There were a couple evenings where we slept with an extra blanket on our bed and when it hasn’t been raining (I know, sorry), the wind has been so strong that I thought my feet were going to be lifted off the sidewalk.

In preparation of this snow that is most likely coming our way (thanks for the warning, Dad!), my winter jacket, scarf and mitts have all been pulled out and I purchased a new pair of waterproof winter boots to make waiting for the bus seem a little warmer. I’ve already made use of my winter jacket and mitts, but I’m holding out on the first snowfall to really break in the boots properly.

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Okay, I get it. Food, especially baked goods should not be green. However, I like to think that there are two exceptions to that rule.

1). Baked goods are allowed to be green if mint is involved

2). The green baked goods are for St. Patrick’s Day

Luckily, these four-leaf clovers fall into both categories.

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After making my Green Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies (which only lasted two days between Trevor and I), I knew I had to bake something else minty and chocolatey.  Did I mention that these are my two favourite dessert combinations?

When getting ice cream as a kid, I always picked the mint chocolate flavour if they carried it (and I preferred the chocolate chunks over the chocolate chips – picky, I know). When I used to drink hot chocolate, I would go through tubs of mint flavoured kind. Now a days, while still enjoying mint chocolate desserts, I even go as far as carrying mint flavoured lip gloss and gum in my purse.

If I had my way, I’m sure I would even have a mint chocolate flavoured wedding cake!

Apparently February 19th was National Chocolate Mint Day, which explains so much that my birthday was only a few days beforehand. 🙂

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With my love of all things chocolate and mint, this recipe was bound to happen.

With St. Patrick’s coming up, I’ve had a lot of green on the brain. Of course it doesn’t hurt that we’ve barely had a winter season here, so every time I step outside I’m greeted with bare lawns and trees. I guess its not the green paradise I’m hoping for….yet.

I do have a little green in my life though as I’ve decided to start an indoor garden. Since the weather has been so warm, our apartment has been a melting pot of heat (our landlord controls the heat in the building). I decided to take advantage of the warmth, so opened my Jiffy greenhouse package a little earlier than planned and set to work on germinating my tomato and spinach seeds.

A few days ago, when checking in on them, I was created with a little green surprise.

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I am full-fledged into the Christmas spirit! Trevor and I have been watching holiday films all for the last two weeks to get in the mood and we haven’t slowed down. We started with the “our generation’s” classics (Elf, Home Alone, Love Actually), we’ve burned through our favourite TV show’s holiday episodes (Modern Family, Community, Glee, The Simpsons) and now we’re prepping for the “old classics” (White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol). The last ones don’t usually air until closer to the 25th, so chances are better that we’ll catch them at my parents’ place.

To get us through these films, I’ve been prepping holiday-themed treats to be paired with our hot drinks. Trevor raved about this recipe, so I figured it was worth posting and remembering for next year.

I would also like to apologize in advance for the low light in these photos. I thought I would have enough time to do the photoshoot before the sun set, but I ran out of time. And I knew that if I didn’t shoot them the night I made them, there was no guarantee that the best looking ones (or any for that matter) would be available the next day.

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