Old-Fashioned Butter Mints

I don't have a kitchen of my own right now, but that hasn't stopped us from making treats to share with our family! My aunt has been graciously sharing her kitchen with us while we are staying with them. We will be here 2 more weeks, then moving closer to where our house is being built and will be in a hotel until it is finished in September. So I am enjoying this "home living" for now and it's been fun making dinners from scratch again!

My kids and I LOVE the old-fashioned butter mints so when I saw this recipe from Averie Cooks for making them from scratch (and it's a no-bake recipe so it doesn't heat up the kitchen!) we decided to try them out!

My kids devoured these. They said they were just right in the minty flavored department. They had fun choosing what colors to make them and a few are swirled with 2 colors.

Just don't leave them out, especially on a warm day. There aren't any preservatives in them and the butter will make them soften and stick together. We put them in the refrigerator and they were perfect.

I definitely foresee making these again! And since we are staying next door to my Grandmother, I went over and borrowed her little hen candy dish for the photos. I've always loved this dish of hers. And then I carefully put it back on the shelf and put the candies in a different container so that my kids could have their way with them. Ha! Total photo opp, but don't they just look at home in that little glass hen?

Recipe Courtesy of Averie Cooks 

Old-Fashioned Butter Mints (no-bake, gluten-free)

Makes about 200 bite-sized mints

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar plus 1/4 cup+, if needed
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
food coloring, optional

To the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and salt and beat for 1 minute on medium-high speed. Add 3 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, milk, peppermint, and beat on medium-low speed until a dough forms. If the dough seems wet, add additional confectioners’ sugar until dough combines (I use 3 1/2 cups sugar). The dough will be crumbly but will come together when pinched and squeezed into a ball.

Taste the batter. If you want a more intense mint flavor, add additional mint extract, to taste.* Be very careful how much mint you add; you cannot un-do this.

Remove dough from the mixer, separate it into 1 to 4 smaller balls, and add one ball back into the mixer. Add the food coloring of your choice to the ball by squirting the droplets on top of the dough (careful when you turn on the mixer), and paddle on low speed until coloring is well-blended. Coloring will not blend completely into each and every speck of dough if examined extremely closely, but overall, mix until color is uniform.

Wash the mixing bowl and the paddle in between each color change and repeat until all the balls are colored. After the dough has been colored, either wrap it with plastic wrap and place it in an airtight container in the refrigerator to be rolled out later or roll it immediately.

Place a golf-ball sized amount of dough in your hands and roll dough into long thin cylinders about 1 centimeter wide. Place cylinders on countertop and with a pizza cutter (or knife – be careful of your counter), slice cylinders into bite-sized pieces, approximately 1 centimeter long. Store mints in an airtight container in the refrigerator where they will keep for many weeks.