Peppermint Patties and Junior Mints

Intro: Peppermint Patties and Junior Mints

Here's a recipe for delicious success: Homemade Peppermint Patties! These much beloved minty sweets are so simple to make that you'll be surprised at how quickly and effortlessly you can put them together. They can even be made vegan, if you are so inclined.

I have also included a variation for Junior Mints towards the end of this tutorial.

So, make your own candy and control the ingredients, save money, and, most importantly, have FUN!

STEP 1: Ingredients and Equipment

To make these patties (1 batch yields about 20-30) you'll need:

2 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 1/2 T.  light corn syrup, honey, or agave (your choice, they all work great!)
1 1/2 T. water
1 T. cream cheese (for the vegan option, simply omit the cream cheese. It is still plenty creamy without it!)
1/2 t. peppermint extract
1/4 t. vanilla extract
1 1/2 T. shortening

2 cups semisweet morsels (go darker if you prefer; 65-75% chocolate works great too.)
2 T. butter (or shortening if you want to go vegan.)

Equipment you'll need:

Mixing Bowl
Cookie Sheet (not pictured)
Rolling Pin
Electric Mixer
Small  (1-1 1/2 inches in diameter) circular cookie cutter (A shot glass turned upside down will work in a pinch.)
Spatula
Wax paper, parchment paper or silicone baking mat
Double Boiler or microwave
Measuring spoons/cups
Fork or dipping utensil (not pictured)

STEP 2: Start Mixing

Take out your bowl and dump in the powdered sugar, liquid sweetener of choice, water, shortening, cream cheese, peppermint and vanilla. Blend with and electric mixer until well blended (mixture will be crumbly.) Stir with a spoon to help it all cohere, using a bit of hand-power if necessary.

STEP 3: Roll and Cut the Dough

Next, scoop the smooth white ball of dough onto your work surface that has been lightly dusted in powdered sugar (I used my trusty silpat.) Roll out until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

(Psst! in that time you can have all those dishes cleaned and dried! Just sayin')

STEP 4: Cut the Dough, Melt Chocolate

Using your cookie cutter (or shot glass)  punch circles into the dough, and put back into the freezer for another 10 minutes. While they are in the freezer, you'll start to melt the chocolate. If you are using a double boiler, set it up and put the chocolate chips and shortening into the top and begin melting. If you are using a microwave, put your ingredients into a heat proof bowl and commence melting, heating at 30 second intervals on high and stirring in between until smooth and without lumps.

STEP 5: Dip!

When the chocolate is all melted and the patties are chilled, you're ready to dip! Take the patties out of the freezer and let them sit for a minute to avoid breakage when transferring to dip. Get out a cookie sheet and line with wax or parchment paper. Peel off the circles and one by one drop them into the chocolate and smooth the tops, coating each thoroughly. Place them on the cookie sheet and keep going until they are all sufficiently swathed in chocolate. Put them in the freezer for about 20 minutes to allow the chocolate to set.

For the 'Junior Mints' variation, simply gather up the odd shaped pieces and strips of dough leftover from the circle cutting process and roll them into small balls, flattening slightly on two sides to form the traditional junior mint shape. Pop them in the freezer for about 5 minutes to firm, and then dip them in the same manner as the circular mints. Chill until set.

STEP 6: Enjoy!

You know what to do now without this step: enjoy the fruits of your labor! These make a fantastic after meal sweet or an afternoon pick-me-up. Just be sure to store them in the fridge to keep the chocolate from getting really melty.

Comments

[EzraBK]

Can you use regular sugar

[WUVIE]

I realisse this question is now three years old, but to answer your question, no, you cannot use regular sugar. :-)

[KJsJoys]

These are really yummy and here is a really helpful tip, (I hope) for anyone about to being making these: I combined all the wet ingredients for the mint center except the powdered sugar and put it in a gallon-size FREEZER (sturdier) ziplock bag. I put the sugar in cup by cup and just mixed it by squeezing and mashing it around. Your kids or grandkids could do this part, mess-free! It came together as a dough after 4-5 minutes and was already in the bag, so I rolled it flat while it was still in the bag! It's easy to chill too, being in the bag already. Yay!

I wanted mine to taste as much like Trader Joe's dark chocolate mints so I doubled the peppermint and left out the cream cheese. I also used coconut oil which does leave behind the faintest whiff of coconut which I didn't mind this time, but won't use again for mints but would be yummy if you were making, say....a Mounds bar lookalike!

Thanks, kitchenwench, for posting this instructable....I was so happy to find it!

[Justin Mai]

I am on an extremely restricted allergy-diet. There is butter called "Earth Balance" that is basically made without dairy or allergy-inducing nuts. It might be a good alternative for vegans.

[At Liberty]

Earth Balance is tasty! ( ◠‿◠ )

[maby1177]

que buena receta,felicitaciones

[gusew]

Came out great!

[cmatichuk]

I used natural honey, doubled the peppermint, and went with 70% chocolate. I also added a little extra vanilla and butter in the chocolate. They came out great!

[NTBugtraq]

I made these last weekend and they're a huge hit. Instead of patties, however, I made balls, and they turned out like French Creams. My brother insisted I send him the recipe instantly after tasting them as he's been unable to find french creams for 4 years now.

FWIW, I divided the dough prior to adding the peppermint. I divided it into 3 batches, then processed one for peppermint (with streaks of green dye), another with strawberry extract (and a red streak), and finally the last as grape (with red+blue dye well mixed, making it purple of course.)

I could not manage to get my belgian chocolate to be runny enough to spoon, and it was even hard to put the balls onto a fork and swirl in the chocolate. So my balls ended up having considerably more chocolate on them than originally anticipated. That said, everyone agreed the extra milk chocolate was not too much.

Thanks very much kitchenwench!!

[farmerboyk]

Im making these soon with my mom I hope :D

[NGrant]

The key to getting these to look good is to dip quickly so there isn't a ton of chocolate to spill all over and to use a candy safe paintbrush to make a little swirl when it is cooling on your cooling rack or tray. The swirl will hide imperfections from the dip and the tool marks from dipping. This adds a lot of extra work though so I suggest just letting them look however as the taste will make up for it.

[yourworstnightmare]

i would give you a hug if i could! THESE ARE GREAT!

[dswentik]

Since there is no cook time or rising, uniform thickness doesn't seem that important for this application. Would it be easier to roll the dough into a log and slice rounds off of that? If you are worried about uniformity after that, you could lay out the rounds and press them down slightly with a cookie sheet to get them to the same thickness. But slicing a log would avoid all the dough scraps that come from using a cutter.

[thomas the metal man]

I love Peppermint patties, but I am diabetic. Can stevia in the raw work for the powdered sugar? Also, can I sub coconut oil for the shortening? Thanks

[jumpingpea]

I haven't tried stevia, but I used Splenda, with good results. I used the shortening and dark chocolate for dipping. My girlfriend does not like chocolate ( never heard of that before) so she made these and used carob chips to melt for dipping.

[turrilynn]

These are some of my kids' favorites! We will have to try this recipe...and we won't wait for a holiday! hahahahaha!

[Khozo]

Ohh, my mom loves these. It's a perfect recipe to give her.

[BIlly WIngnut]

Recipe tastes great and was easy to follow. Well done!

Quick question based on my miserable execution of the well done recipe: What's the best tool and technique for the dipping? While I certainly performed well at the "drop the patty into the chocolate" and "remove it slobbered in chocolate" parts, it's not the prettiest, most even or most functional final result, and certainly no where near the polished version in the pictures. For my work: Taste - pass. Presentation - Fail. At least I got the right part right if I couldn't get both. :-)

Any tips from the stylistic confectioners out there? Thanks.

[kitchenwench]

Hi BIlly WIngnut ,
Thanks for the compliments! The ones in the pictures were the best of the 3 dozen or so that I made-plenty of mine were not very photogenic, to say the least. :)

When I made my patties, I dipped them with a tool that looks rather like the one in this picture: http://www.countrykitchensa.com/catalog/product.aspx?ShopId=39&CatId=582&SubCatId=616&productId=629094

It is really important to let as much chocolate drip off as possible before laying the patties onto the wax paper. If you don't have a tool like the one above to dip them with, you could use two forks to hold the patty suspended over the melting bowl to let this happen. Otherwise, the chocolate will pool around the patty on the sides and be way too thin on the top.

Hope this helps!
~kitchenwench

[PikeMinnow]

Get your hands chilled by holding some ice cubes- keep your patty from melting. Then dip it manually after letting them sit, and I'd try using a spoon or other small implement that isn't sharp to carefully smooth out the coating after dipping. Maybe add more in thin areas and smooth out thick areas.