Frozen Thin Mint Pie

Frozen Thin Mint pie is a spin-off of the ’60’s phenom, Grasshopper Pie.  Both are green in color and are flavored with mint, however, where the Grasshopper pie’s flavor comes from creme de menthe liquor, Thin Mint Frozen pie gets its minty taste from Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies.  I remember when I was a girl scout selling box after box of cookies in front of grocery stores with my fellow troop members.  I loved starting off as a Brownie to then graduate to the next level… girl scout.  Actually, the “graduation” ceremony is referred to as a “fly up” and it’s more of a bridging ceremony but that’s neither here nor there.  I only know Mama made me stay in girl scouts through to Cadettes.  People, I was a second year cadette in eighth grade!  I hated it.  I was completely over it but Mama insisted I finish the year.  We had two troop leaders, the mothers of two close friends of mine who were also in the troop.  And, although Ann and Kathy were childhood friends of mine, we met at Happyland nursery school, I always sensed their mothers didn’t care for me.  Apparently I was a little too nonnative, ethnic, if you will.  I AM, as y’all know, half Puerto Rican and Daddy was always off doing crazy things in and out of the Amazon so I’m pretty certain those two mothers considered me white trash.  It never bothered me, though.  I know my roots, I know my people, I know where I come from.  Anyway, there I was in junior high, eighth grade, and I’m a freakin’ second year cadette.  Ugh.  We met once a week in the early evening at a church on Federal Highway… you know that church set way, way back from the road?  That one.   Well, there we were one hot evening, all of us wearing that stupid uniform which consisted of a white short sleeve blouse, dark green skirt, a sash draped from shoulder to hip decorated with badges and I believe some sort of ridiculous hat.  As a matter of fact it was a dark green felt beret.  OMG.  I’m dying!  Not being able to sit through one more moment of goody-goody, sanctimonious torture I asked to be excused to go to the ladies room.  Honey, I grabbed my purse and took off.  Oh, the air felt so good on my face as I skipped down the staircase.  There at the bottom of the stairs was a phone booth and I figured it was the perfect time to call my crush.  And I’m not going to tell y’all who it was because he was a total loser so don’t even ask.  Anyway, I dropped in my dime, (that ought to tell you how old I am.  That and the fact there even was a phone booth), and dialed away.  We chatted about nothing for I don’t know how long.  On and on and on.  All I knew was I was not going back.  All of a sudden the door to the phone booth flew open and there stood Kathy’s mother… all red in the face and boiling mad.  My sense is Kathy’s mother came from a family of screamers because they were LOUD people plus I know that she and her husband, the judge, were serious drinkers soooo… I guess my point is that there might not have been much self-discipline in her life.  My life was the opposite.  We were never spanked or hit and voices were never, ever raised in my house.  We are always ladies and gentlemen.  I’m here to tell you that woman tore me a new one.  I had never really been yelled at before.  She leaned in to holler at me, waving her arms about, spittle flying.  I wasn’t afraid.  I guess I was too foolish to know it would have been better for me to cut and run… somewhere… anywhere.  I remember she grabbed me by the arm and jerked me out of the phone booth.  That’s where the memory ends.  All I know is that I never went back.  I’ve always thought I was kicked out of the troop but in chuckling over this with my bestie and fellow troop member, Dana, she exclaimed, “I thought you quit!”.  Well, I don’t know how it ended, I’m just eternally grateful that particular time of my life is over.  Girl Scouts had its place in my life but let’s don’t push it.  I’ll still buy their Thin Mint cookies however that is where our relationship ends.

This is a great do-ahead recipe which looks great and tastes even better.  I make it in a 10-inch springform pan that has been very lightly sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.  I’ve never had to let soften for a few minutes  prior to slicing and serving as it is like ice cream and will melt quickly… very quickly.  If you have no Thin Mint cookies on hand or available, any chocolate sandwich cookie will work.  I believe I used regular Oreos for the pie in these photos.  It was killer good.  In fact, I couldn’t stay out of it so after taking the photographs I threw it in the garbage, (that hurt), and then dumped the morning’s coffee grounds over it so I couldn’t go in later and at least pull out a piece of crust.  If you don’t want to use whipped cream to decorate the pie, a border of crushed cookie crumbs looks marvelous.  The colors of the pie really pop.  I’m pretty sure it goes without saying all leftovers must be stored in the freezer.