A couple of years ago my mom brought me back a fancy box of Cream Cheese Mints from a confectionary shop in Philadelphia, where she was traveling for a business trip. They were so beautiful, pepperminty, and delightful.
I have never come across those mints for sale anywhere close to me, so I put it in my head that I would make them myself. I first searched for them on Pinterest and found THIS recipe. I got so excited that I went out and purchased some pretty flower candy molds from my local craft store. I wanted to make them very fancy like the ones my mother had given to me. Well, years passed and I never made those mints, but they did remain in the back of my mind as a rainy day experiment.
It just so happens that my husband and I have been invited to a dinner and a housewarming party next week and I figured that these would make quite a nice little hostess gift. Turns out there is a nasty cold going around and all of the planned get togethers have been postponed. But, you know what? I made them anyway, because I was craving something sweet, and all the reviews said they would freeze quite nicely.
Here's what you need:
1 pound confectioners sugar, 4oz cream cheese, 1/8 tsp peppermint extract, food coloring, candy molds, granulated sugar for rolling
Here's what you do:
Mix Ingredients: I used a handheld mixer to soften the cream cheese, then I added the peppermint extract. Next, I added the confectioners sugar just a little bit at a time (it gets messy!) If you want to make your mints all the same color, you can go ahead and blend that in as well (perhaps before you add the confectioners sugar).
Add the Food Coloring: I wanted three colors of flowers, so I separated the mixture onto three balls. I used one drop of yellow and one drop of red for the pink and yellow mixtures. For the purple mixture, I used 2 drops of red and 1 drop of blue and this changed the consistency of the mixture, so I had to add some extra confectioners sugar to it.
Mold Your Mints: I tore off small bits of mixture, rolled them into balls, coated them in granulated sugar and then placed them in my candy molds. I ended up just using the one round mold, because I couldn't get the details to turn out well enough with the other flower shapes.
I placed all of the mints on a cooling rack covered with wax paper. When I was finished rolling and molding the mints, I stuck them in the fridge for about 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes, I transferred them into an airtight container and stuck them in the freezer.
I can't wait to package these up in cute little boxes and take them as hostess gifts. These were super easy to make and I am very interested to try some different things with them. Some people say that they like to play around with the extracts they use. I am thinking that anise might be a fun and delicious extract to try. Also, next time I would like to use gel food color to perhaps get a more pigmented color.
xo Bridget
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