Old Fashioned Butter Mints

I cannot believe my vacation is over!  The past few days have mostly been spent hibernating with a sinus infection.  As if my body is rebelling against going back to work, today both of my eyelids started swelling.  Cool.  2016, I had such high hopes for you!

Do you still have your Christmas tree up?  I do.  I love my tree and I don't want to take it down.  It adds such a nice light to my living room!  I think I will keep it until I finish all of my Christmas blog recipes so I don't feel so behind schedule :)

I made these butter mints to give as a gift, along with some other candies.  These were by far the easiest!  The recipe is very similar to frosting, which I know sounds gross, but they end up being soft, sweet, minty little bites that are very pretty.  Plus, you get to roll out the dough and cut it with a pizza cutter, so you get to feel like you're playing with Play-Doh.  I got these - about 200 of them - done within 45 minutes.  And that included time to add 2 different food colorings, let the dogs and in out a thousand times, text people witty things, and watch the news.  You know how the week before Christmas seems to grant you the ability to do 1,000 things at once?  At this point I can hardly do one thing at a time.  Like I am trying to look up dogs to adopt.... don't ask, or tell my mom... and write this blog post... so I am not totally sure if it's making much sense.  Plus my eyelids are swollen.  Cut me some slack :)

Recipe:

old fashioned butter mints
from Averie Cooks
makes about 200 mints

Ingredients:
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 1/4 cups confectionary sugar
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
food coloring

Instructions:

1) To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and salt and beat for 1 minutes on medium-high speed.  Add confectionary sugar, milk, and peppermint, and beat on medium-low speed until a dough forms.  If the dough seems wet, you can add more sugar (up to 1/4 cup more).  The dough will be crumbly, but will come together when pinched and squeezed into a ball.

2) Remove the dough from the mixer, separate it into 2 smaller balls (or however many different colors you want), and add one ball back into the mixer.  Add food coloring of your choice and paddle on low speed until coloring is well blended.  Color will not blend completely into each and every speck of dough, or overall, mix unto color is uniform.

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

4) 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 sharp knife, 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.