Goddess Of Scrumptiousness

A Minty Sugar Rush : Pretty in Pink Dinner Mints

I’ve always been in love with dinner or butter mints. It is that refreshing taste of peppermint and the spontaneous disintegration of it the moment I pop the candy in my mouth are the reasons why I am quite addicted with these.

I also have fond memories of dinner mints in my childhood. I remember one time I was babysitting my 2 year old cousin all alone (I was 11 years old that time) and I got hungry, well not that dinner mints can satisfy hunger, but I was looking for something to occupy my mouth as well as needed some energy booster to keep up with a bouncy toddler. So I happened upon a flat and round tin of dinner mints my aunt kept inside her China cabinet. I was only supposed to eat 3 small pieces but I got hooked with the melt-in-the-mouth sensation of those mints that I realized I ate more than half of the contents of the tin. Anyways, I was babysitting pro bono back then (yes, I was already a cousin-babysitter since I was 7 years old so I was actually already a professional by the age of 11, though it was always pro bono babysitting jobs for all my aunts and uncles) and so my aunt just ended up giving me the whole tin as my reward.

Last week, I was browsing through my disqus comments because I occasionally receive comments from other food bloggers from different platforms. And Blogspot’s Wilde In The Kitchen posted a lovely comment on my bread pudding post.

I am always very grateful whenever other food bloggers stop by to visit my blog, and so I also make an effort to visit their blogs whenever I can.

Vicki @ Wilde in the Kitchen makes wonderful candies, and if you visit her blog, she even has a Candy Collection link tab where I saw her fantastic Pillow Mints.

I adapted her recipe which she originally sourced from the book Sweet Confections. I think the recipe is simple, fool-proof and very kid-friendly that families can make this candy recipe over the weekends and just have fun rolling minty sugar dough and forming it into any tiny shapes.

I did a bit of adjustment with the original recipe, reducing the amount of butter in half because the weather where I am is too hot and humid and there is no way these mints will ever dry up the way I want them to be if I put the specified amount of butter required in the recipe. And I must say, these mints turned out equally great and melts in the mouth just the same, though you can always follow this recipe from Vicki’s blog.

Pretty In Pink Dinner Mints

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar

2 Tablespoons heavy cream

1/4 cup softened unsalted butter

1 teaspoon peppermint extract (I used peppermint oil)

1 drop of red food color (or whatever color you prefer to make two-toned marbled mints)

Procedure:

In a mixing bowl, mix together sifted confectioner’s sugar, heavy cream, butter and peppermint extract. Mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until it forms into a soft dough.

Divide the sugar dough into two, one half will be tinted with a drop of red food color to produce a pink colored dough and the other half will remain white.

Individually roll out the white and pink sugar doughs then place the pink rolled out dough over the white one. Fold into thirds like a book (left, middle and right), fold the right side over the middle then fold the left side over the right. Roll the now two-toned dough into a fat cylinder and cut into 3. Roll each third into 3/4-inch (diameter) ropes then cut into 1/2-inch pieces to which you either shape the pieces into pillows, squares or balls.

Place the shaped dinner mints on a baking tray and air dry overnight.

Store in tins or loose lid jars.

Tip: I placed the mints on a baking rack to dry so that the air can also circulate from under making the candy dry out evenly.

Makes about 3 1/2 dozens

Source: goddessofscrumptiousness