Kid-Friendly Butter Mint Recipe for Holiday Treats

Looking for a fun activity I could make with my 4 and 8 year old kids, I decided to hold off on homemade candy canes in favor of an easier, safer, no-cook recipe.

Old fashioned butter mints are those small pastel-colored mints you often find in grandma's candy jar, or on the occasional restaurant register counter.  You can find them in bulk, but they often come like this, wrapped in plastic:

You can make your own butter mints at home!  They're way more fun and you can flavor these with almond, orange or lemon too - we just started off with mint.

Vitamix to the Rescue on Powdered Sugar

Until this week, I didn't actually know what was in powdered sugar.  Have you ever thought about it?  It isn't always available in bulk, and I've never seen it for sale in anything other than plastic.  To my delight, it was WAY easier than I expected to make powdered sugar with a Vitamix.   

DIY Powdered Sugar in 60 Seconds Recipe:

This makes 4 CUPS of plastic free powdered sugar.  

• 4 cups sugar (we buy in bulk)
• 4T cornstarch (comes in a box) 

Directions:

Pour into a Vitamix and blend on 10 for 30 seconds.  Wallah!  Plastic Free powdered sugar.  Never again will we be buying this.

Back to the Homemade butter mints with Kids Recipe courtesy of Averie Cooks:

Homemade Butter Mints Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup butter, softened (I used unsalted, but salted may be substituted based on preference)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (consider omitting if you used salted butter)
• 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

Directions:

Using a hand mixer or bowl mixer, whip the butter and salt until soft and airy (about 2 minutes)

Slow down the mixer and add 3 cups of the powdered sugar, careful not to cloud yourself in it

Add the condensed milk and mix until combined. The dough will be crumbly, but will stick together when you press it.

Add the extract.  Be careful here.  Extracts, especially Mint extract is very strong, so add in very small amounts and taste test as you go - you can't undo this step, so slow is best.  You can also separate the dough at this point and use separate flavors.  

Optional: Separate the dough into 2 or 3 bowls and color each with 2-3 drops of food coloring.

Knead the coloring into each batch separately using leftover powdered sugar to keep it from sticking to the counter.

Now is play time!  Kids can knead and roll out the dough just like playdough.  We made long snakes and used a knife to cut little bits off, then rolled them into balls.   You can make other shapes, but I recommend keeping them small because these mints are SUPER SWEET.

Separate the mints on a cookie sheet and let sit out overnight to dry.  The morsels will remain soft and buttery inside!