Old-Fashioned Butter Mints — 💚❤️ These homemade butter mints require just 6 ingredients to make! This recipe makes a big batch, so you’ll have lots left over for gifting.
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Old-Fashioned Butter Mints Recipe
One of the highlights of going to my grandma’s house when I was growing up — in addition to playing Gin Rummy for money at age six — was raiding her candy dish. She used to have Jolly Ranchers, butterscotch candies, and after dinner mints in that little white dish with the lid. (When you’re six,”after dinner” means the minute you can get your sweaty little mitts on the mints, you do.)
I decided it was time to make my own homemade mints since I have such fond memories of them.
These homemade butter mints are so smooth and just melt in your mouth.
Normally with mints, one is all you need. Maybe two. With these, you want at least 17 because they are cool yet sweet, firm yet melty. Plus they’re tiny.
It may not have been the brightest idea to make a recipe that needed to be sliced into 250 little pieces (just a guess) and I am not one for extra steps and monkey business and fussy recipes, but I rolled the dough into long skinny logs in between my hands and it felt like I was playing with Play-Doh.
You will never want a store-bought after buttercream mints again!
Ingredients for Butter Mints
To make these creamy, soft mints, you’ll need the following:
- Unsalted butter
- Salt
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Sweetened condensed milk
- Peppermint extract
- Food coloring
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Homemade Butter Mints
- Cream together the salt and butter for about a minute.
- Beat in the sweetened condensed milk, powdered sugar, and peppermint extract.
- Continue mixing until a dough forms, then remove the dough from the mixer and divide into one to four equal-sized balls.
- Add one dough ball at a time back into the mixer and add your choice of food coloring to the dough. Mix until the color is uniform throughout. Wash the mixing bowl and paddle between each color change and repeat this process until each dough ball is colored.
- To shape the butter mints, roll out a golf ball-sized piece of dough into a long rope and slice into bite-sized pieces.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, you can use any variety of mint extract you prefer (i.e. mint, peppermint, spearmint, etc). These after dinner mints will be tasty no matter what type of mint extract you use.
Just remember that mint extract cannot be undone and if you plan to make these, make sure you read my mint cautionary tales in the recipe section. You want to eat mints. Not eat a bottle of Listerine.
I’ve only ever made this butter mints recipe using peppermint extract, so I can’t speak to whether or not (food grade!) peppermint essential oil will work here.
I suspect this recipe would be nice with cinnamon extract, lemon or orange extract, or many other specialty flavored extracts from butter to rum to coconut to coffee extract. If you choose to use another specialty flavored extract, you’ll have to use your best judgement when flavoring these butter mints.
I used red and green food coloring, but you could make these for Easter, Mother’s Day, a baby or bridal shower and use pastels. The un-dyed dough is stark white and a blank canvas.
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Old-Fashioned Butter Mints
Ingredients
- ¼ cup butter, softened (I used unsalted, but salted may be substituted based on preference)
- ¼ teaspoon salt, consider omitting if you used salted butter
- 3 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar plus 1/4 cup+, if needed
- ⅓ cup sweetened condensed milk
- ½ teaspoon peppermint extract*
- food coloring, optional
Instructions
- To the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and salt and beat for 1 minute on medium-high speed.
- Add 3 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, milk, peppermint, and beat on medium-low speed until a dough forms. If the dough seems wet, add additional confectioners’ sugar until dough combines (I use 3 1/2 cups sugar). The dough will be crumbly but will come together when pinched and squeezed into a ball.
- Taste the batter. If you want a more intense mint flavor, add additional mint extract, to taste (see note below).
- Remove dough from the mixer, separate it into 1 to 4 smaller balls, and add one ball back into the mixer. Add the food coloring of your choice to the ball by squirting the droplets on top of the dough (careful when you turn on the mixer), and paddle on low speed until coloring is well-blended. Coloring will not blend completely into each and every speck of dough if examined extremely closely, but overall, mix until color is uniform. (I separated approximately two-thirds of the dough and made it green using about 15 drops green food coloring and made one-third of the dough red-pink by using about 7 drops red food coloring).
- Wash the mixing bowl and the paddle in between each color change and repeat until all the balls are colored.
- After the dough has been colored, either wrap it with plastic wrap and place it in an airtight container in the refrigerator to be rolled out later or roll it immediately.
- To shape the butter mints, 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 knife – be careful of your counter), 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.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Hi there! I used this recipe years ago to make these scrumptious butter mints. At the time I used peppermint extract and they turned out delicious, however I’m wondering if you’ve ever tried Peppermint Essential Oil instead of the extract, and if so, what the ratio of it you could use?
Thanks for your help!
Angela
Haven’t tried any other way than exactly how I wrote it so can’t give suggestions for substitution quantities. Since they turned out great for you before, I’d be inclined to change nothing and repeat!
This recipe doesn’t say to dry these mints before storing. So they are soft? Not hard like the commercial ones?
They are not soft, but they’re not as rock-hard (i.e. break a tooth kind of hardness) as some of those commercial mints are.
Leaving a butter-based dough at room temp to ‘dry’ could be a tricky proposition depending on your climate, warmth level of the house, etc. For me just storing them in the fridge as the recipe is written works fine.
has anyone tried putting the batter through a cookie press? If it works, I’m thinking green buttermint Christmas trees.
I haven’t tried it that way but I vaguely remember having a few people comment on doing it or were going to do it, if you have time to glance at the previous comments. Good luck and let me know if you try!
Really want to try these for Christmas but was wondering-after cutting them do you let them “air dry” (dry out a bit to firm up) before putting in the fridge, or put them in the fridge right away?
Ive made them both ways as you describe. Your dough and climate that day will dictate to you the right way to go based on how moist or dry things seem. Enjoy!
These taste so good. My question is do they get firm after cutting and refrigerating?
Yes they definitely firm up.
I was thinking of making a batch of the butter mints with each of the different flavorings and giving them as gifts that way I would not have to attempt to make tiny batches.
Could these be pressed into candy rubber molds?
Not sure because I haven’t tried it that way. Never know til you try, though!
i tried putting it into a silicon mould and it just stuck to it…i used a pretty detailed mould though. i am wondering if a simpler one might have worked, and def would have dusted with the confectioners sugar!
I’ve never tried with a mould and so can’t speak to results but thanks for sharing. I’ve only made the recipe the way I wrote it.
These were a pain in the butt to make, and I had to use way more sugar than called for. Then, they kept sticking together, and all in all was a waste of my pantry items
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m sorry you had to use more sugar than called for. Ingredients and climates do matter in baking, especially in candy making, and in this recipe, there’s probably $2.99 worth of powdered sugar. If you feel that’s excessive, I’m sorry.
I made these with anise extract because I very much dislike mint but love the texture of butter mints. They turned out very tasty but didn’t harden quite like they should. I’m not sure if they need to dry longer in the refrigerator (it’s been over night) or if I should have added more confectioner’s sugar – I used 3 1/4 cups and had a very workable yet slightly crumbly dough.
Thanks for trying the recipe and it’s a bit hard to troubleshoot a recipe like this since ingredients and climates vary. I would say that *slightly* more sugar could have worked out better for firming up purposes. Or there could be a difference in the way anise extract stuff vs. mint extract stuff sets up; not sure since I’ve never experimented.
I made three batches today for the first time. I about fell apart during the first batch thinking this crumbly mess will never amount to anything! Then my husband came into the kitchen, looked in the mixer and said “it’s forming a ball Des’…sure enough! They turned out perfectly! I am looking forward to giving a big container out for a white elephant gift and having a dish sitting on the table so everyone can enjoy!
Glad that you saw that ball in the mixer and had faith :) And glad you made 3 batches! Hope your guests enjoy the mints!
Thanks for the recipe. This is the closest that I have ever found for my Auntie Julia’s recipe. She and my Great-Grandma Sophia used to make them every Christmas both for their own use and as presents. In addition to the mint version, I seem to remember her making a version with dark molasses and rum extract. Definitely worth trying in the future. She also made ones with orage and lemon extracts.
how long do i let the dough sit in the refrigerator
Until it’s not mushy and firm enough to slice.
I really want to make these to gift! How long before bottling them should they be made? Do you know how long they would last/stay fresh?
I would make them as close to when you want to give them as possible; fresh is always best. However, in the fridge, they will keep for many weeks, if not a month or two.
Thanks soo much :)