Old Fashioned Butter Mints - either pillow shaped or molded

I normally make old fashioned mints with cream cheese and powdered sugar (although I'm not sure if I've ever posted them or not?) but with weddings on the mind today, I thought I'd put up a recipe for the butter style mint.  Butter mints are usually shaped like little pastel pillows.  These are easily made by rolling out the dough into a long rope and slicing them into tiny bite sized pillow mints.  However, I usually make the cream cheese version and I like to use molds to shape them.  I'll link to some molds at the bottom of the post.  (I personally own the yellow leaf mold and the same brand/style in roses and a couple other designs.)

I like to flavor my mints - using spearmint and green food color for leaves, and pink coloring with almond flavoring for the roses as well as sometimes, vanilla.  This recipe calls for peppermint but feel free to use whatever flavors you wish.    

**Important note**  Extracts are different than oils.  If you are using concentrated oils, you measure by drops - not teaspoons.  If it's an extract, your recipe for approximately 200 tiny mints will use about 1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon but if you are using oils, start with drops or at most, 1/8 teaspoon and taste before adding any more drop by drop or you will overpower the dough.



Old-Fashioned Butter Mints

1/4 c butter, softened
1/4 t salt
3 1/4 c powdered sugar plus 1/4 cup if needed
1/3 c sweetened condensed milk
1/2 t peppermint extract
food coloring, optional

Combine butter and salt and beat for 1 minute on medium-high speed. Add the 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. The dough will be crumbly but will come together when pinched and squeezed into a ball.

Taste test. If you want a more intense mint flavor, add additional mint extract, to taste. Only add by drops as it's easy to quickly overwhelm with too much.

If you want different colored mints, divide the dough into separate balls and add food coloring of your choice.


If you don't want to use molds, just roll dough into long thin cylinders about 1 centimeter wide. Place cylinders on countertop and with a pizza cutter slice cylinders into bite-sized pieces, approximately 1 centimeter long.  To use molds, pinch off a small bit, press into a mold and then unmold carefully, laying the mint on foil or parchment.

Store mints in an airtight container in the refrigerator where they will keep for many weeks.



You might also be interested in these related products from Amazon;

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Lorann Hard Candy Flavoring Oils YOU Pick the Flavors 12 Pack + One Dram Dropper
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