“On my honor, I will try: to serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout law.”

One hundred years ago today, 18 girls gathered in Savannah, Ga., for the first meeting of what would become the Girl Scouts.

Roughly 25 years ago, I attended my first meeting of Troop 1508 as a Brownie.

Yesterday, I made a Thin Mint pie.

I don’t have any memories of my first Brownie meeting, but I have tons of Girl Scout-related memories. For example: About midway through first grade, I saw an unfamiliar (but totally adorable) girl wearing a Brownie uniform on OUR meeting day. Being a completely reasonable person, I thought she was trying to invade/take over our troop. Turns out she had just moved to Arizona from Michigan, and we became best friends. Her mom also became our troop’s co-leader.

Notes on this photo: 1. This was clearly during my Laura Ingalls Wilder hair phase, which is also when I went by “Elise” (my middle name). 2. The girl on the far left in the front row was a baton twirler and later became Miss Arizona. 3. The one with the dark brown side pony tail was my best friend, Erica.

We went to camp every year, although it wasn’t always the same camp. One was called Friendly Pines. At another one, the name of which I don’t recall, we had a cabin with a squeaky low battery in the smoke detector, which kept us up all night cursing “crickets.”

And of course, there were the cookies. I loved going door to door selling cookies, always trying to outsell everyone else. One year I even made up a cookie-related rap. And I was pretty good at selling them outside the gourmet grocery store, too. But I always came in behind Amanda (panda shirt). Her mom was the cookie mom; mine was the calendar mom. Those boxes of cookies only cost $2.50 then!

Now, Thin Mints have always been, and will always be, my favorite Girl Scout cookie. Tagalongs have grown on me, and Samoas are obviously amazing, but Thin Mints win. So this was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking of something to make for the Girl Scout centennial.

Only one problem: We didn’t have any Thin Mints left. Toby opened our last box about a week ago. I ate four, and then he ate about 75 percent of the rest, then threw the box away. Luckily, our neighbors are consistently awesome and bought us a box when they saw some girls selling them outside the grocery store yesterday.

Seriously, can you think of anything better than a chocolate-mint pie with Thin Mint crust? I can’t.

This might deserve a new badge.

Thin Mint pie (Adapted from Gourmet Comfort‘s chocolate cream pie)
Crust
About 18 Thin Mint (or similar) cookies
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Melt the butter. Put the cookies in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Stir the butter, 1 1/3 cup cookie crumbs and sugar together, then press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch deep pie plate. Save remaining cookie crumbs for later.

Bake 15-20 minutes, until edges are crisp. Allow to cool.

Pie filling
5 ounces 60% cacao chocolate
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large egg yolks
3 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Set the butter out on the counter. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or according to package directions.

Whisk the sugar, cornstarch, salt and egg yolks together in a medium heavy saucepan until well combined. Continue whisking as you add milk in a steady stream. Bring mixture to a boil on medium heat (make sure it actually comes to a boil), then reduce heat to low and continue whisking 1 more minute. Mixture should be a pudding-like consistency. (If it’s not, turn the heat back up a little and keep whisking until it thickens).

Remove from heat and force mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium or large bowl, then stir in melted chocolate, butter, peppermint and vanilla extracts. Gently press a buttered piece of wax paper down on the surface of the chocolate mixture and refrigerate until completely cool, about 2 hours.

Once mixture is cool, spoon/spread it into the cooled crust. Cover the pie and refrigerate it for at least 6 hours.

Mint whipped cream
3/4 cup cold heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

Beat cream with sugar and peppermint until cream holds stiff peaks (if you overbeat it a little, add some more cream and watch the mixture as you whip it a few more seconds), then spread it over top of pie. Sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs and serve pie immediately.