Altoids are surprisingly simple to make, and you can create any flavor you can think up! All you need are a couple ingredients, some flavored oils, and your imagination.
No longer do you need to be a slave to the Altoids empire! Now you can make curiously strong candies in your own kitchen. I started with peppermint, cinnamon, and sour apple. What's next? Clove? Coffee? Bacon?? The sky is the limit!
These can be stored and gifted in your own personalized tins. How thoughtful!
No longer do you need to be a slave to the Altoids empire! Now you can make curiously strong candies in your own kitchen. I started with peppermint, cinnamon, and sour apple. What's next? Clove? Coffee? Bacon?? The sky is the limit!
These can be stored and gifted in your own personalized tins. How thoughtful!
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These Altoids require few ingredients, but they might not be too easy to get a hold of, so I've provided some easy links:
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- Gum Paste
- Powdered Confectioner's Sugar
- Flavored Oils
- Citric Acid (to add to flavors to make them sour)
- Bubble tea straw (or small round cutter)
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I"m excited to try this, but I'd like to incorporate xylitol into this recipe. Any thoughts on the best way to do it? Ideally, I'd like to make it so that eating 3-5 mints throughout the day would end up having 2tsp of xylitol.
http://www.drellie.com/Xylitol.php
http://www.xylitol.org/dental-benefits-of-xylitol
http://www.healingteethnaturally.com/xylitol-dental-care-frequently-asked-questions-faq-4.html
Because as much as I adore the 'toids, it IS rather an expensive addiction. I noticed that on the Altoids tin, their ingredients are sugar, gum Arabic, artificial flavors, gelatin, and dye. Do you have an opinion on the use of gelatin or doesn't it make a significant difference?
One of the perks of using a powdered gum paste mix like Wilton's makes or making your own is you can use tea or coffee to make the stuff, and that gives you more options of flavors. I like to make chai ones.
Glad it worked out for you. Your 30 days of Instructables is brilliant! I absolutely love it.
Thanks.
You might end up with squashed shapes simliar to these:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/After_dinner_mints.jpg
or if you rotate the rolled dough 90 degrees per cut you could get e triangular sharpe like these:
http://www.thesweetiestall.com/chocolate%20mints.JPG
I suspect that using scissors will enhance the look.
Suzanne in Orting, WA
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080906001555AAfNYFT
haven't tried it yet but it appeals to me since we have about 20 Lbs of confectioners sugar left over from over ambitious holiday plans.
The problem is while caffeine is pretty harmless in its proper dosage, it can be pretty dangerous if you take too much. So my question is what would be the safest way to introduce caffeine powder? My worry is whether or not the caffeine gets distributed through the entire mix and each pill has the proper amount. It would be scary if it all ended up only spread out among four or five mints.
I used to make my one soda pop. I wanted to add caffeine. I was faced with the same dilemma of dosing small amounts. So I dissolved the caffeine in water. You can make the mixture however dilute you want and when it dissolves it is very evenly distributed. And since you dry the candy all that water will evaporate.
I was torn between making my mixture 10mg per 1ml or 10mg per 10ml. Well I mixed it at 10 to 1 but added it so my soda as if I mixed it 10 to 10. So I accidentally added 10 times what I meant to. What made matters worse is that I mixed the soda with alcohol and so didn't notice the effects until early the next morning when the alcohol had worn off but the caffeine was alive and well in my system. My heart was racing, my skin was crawling, and I couldn't sit still. I ended up going to the emergency room. I was in no real danger of dying and the doctors thought it was rather hilarious but it was terrifying. They gave me drugs to calm me down 24 hours later I was fine.
So go ahead and do this if you want, I don't mean to dissuade you. Just let me repeat, because it bears saying twice...
BE CAREFUL
If you buy bulk caffiene, like at purebulk dot com or amazon dot com, you should know that 1/8 th of a teaspoon equals 215 MG of caffeine, so don't eyeball it. Work the math to target 100 MG per mint, or whatever you want. Add the caffeine to the second batch.
Warning those who will eat them that eating more than 600 MG in one sitting will make them ill (more or less per person). Excessive amounts will make them dead. One Red Bull has 80 MG, in comparison.
Another easy option for this is to make Butter mints (the no cooking kind).
The Penguin Caffeinated Peppermints say they have as much caffine as a 12 ounce cola. Coke and Pepsi have about 35mg of caffine in a 12 ounce can.
You probably could do this with the gum base you buy as a paste and not a powder, but it would be more difficult to get an even distribution of caffine.
Let us know how it turns out. Just don't eat all of your homemade mints at once!
One thing I would caution is that the peppermint oil is some heavy duty stuff. I managed to drip a bit on a bamboo bowl and it removed the finish on that spot. (And I got myself into trouble with my habit of rubbing my eyes, but we won't go into *that* ridiculous story...)