It’s a shame that Girl Scout Cookie season is so short. While it gives me something to look forward to at the end of March, I’ve completely depleted my cookie stash by the time May rolls around. If you missed Girl Scout Cookie season (or just miss it emotionally), I want to help you get through these tough months before the next one rolls around. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be testing copycat recipes for some of the most popular flavors so you can make them at home. Let’s start with the superstar of simplicity: Thin Mints.

All GSC fans know that the Thin Mint is the standard for mint cookies. It’s a small bite. A crisp, no-nonsense chocolate chip cookie on the inside with a thin layer of chocolate. Then a cool breeze of mint blows through. It’s always best to buy at least two boxes: one for the first 10 minutes and the second to take it easy.

Imitating this famous cookie is relatively easy. The cookie itself can be made using any reliable recipe for chocolate pâte sablée (basically a mixture of butter, sugar, a little egg, cocoa and flour) with the addition of mint extract. The dough is easy to roll out and baking it is a piece of cake. To make the cookie dough, I adapted this recipe from Baked by an Introvert.

The site above states that "cookies are best served cold," which is true—many of us love thin mints straight from the freezer—but that's not so much a nice tip as a necessity here. That's because the coating is too soft at room temperature, due to the addition of vegetable oil in the recipe. To get around this, I recommend using only melted chocolate chips, which will still be sticky at room temperature but not gooey. Alternatively, you can use chocolate melting wafers (like the ones below), which are designed to set without tempering.