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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I remember my grandmother having these too! Thanks for posting! I just made two batches to give with Christmas gifts. They are yummy and my house smells so fresh! Happy Holidays!!!!
Ps I did every thing by hand as I do not have a stand-mixer and it worked out well.
That’s awesome you did it by hand AND that you made two batches and are giving some away. No doubt people will remember that gift! Thanks for trying the recipe & coming back to LMK you had success!
I made these last night. They required significantly more powdered sugar and then we let them dry, uncovered, in the fridge overnight. Next time I’ll use even more powdered sugar. I think the climate difference between San Diego and North Carolina on a rainy day made a big difference in the recipe. So if anyone reading the comments finds their mints won’t dry or set up, try more powdered sugar and some drying time.
Just like with bread-making, humid climates require far more flour to get a workable dough, not surprising that you required more powdered sugar in your humidity than I do in my dry climate. Glad you tried the recipe!
I do not have a paddle attachment for my mixer, will that mess these up? I really want to make them for Christmas giveaways but am now worried I won’t be able to. They look so good.
Then mix it by hand – elbow grease will work just fine :)
I love the old-fashioned butter mints they sell at Cracker Barrel, these look almost identical in the pictures you posted. The color isn’t as deep on theirs but I like the bright colors better. Will definitely try these. We make our Christmas gifts for everyone outside our immediate family and it’s usually jams, jellies, candies and baked good. Definitely have to add these to my repertoire. Thanks for sharing.
Wow! These look amazing, and I can’t wait to try them. I used to love melt-in-your-mouth Buttermints as a kid. It’s been a long, long time. It’s about time for me to take a trip down memory lane, don’t you think? Many thanks for a great recipe! Kristi
I made these last week to put on my daughter’s birthday cake , they are one of her favorites . I decorated the cake & used them for a boarder. She just loved it and got the rest of the batch to eat & share. Thank you for sharing the recipe.
That is so awesome! Cake decorating with them and then eating the extras and sharing them with guests – that’s great thinking! Thanks for the feedback and taking the time to write – I appreciate it! :)
Well,I didn’t heed your advice and wait until the little one was asleep. My almost 3yr old son has been helping me bake in the last couple of months and this was too much fun for him. I think there was no surface not covered with powdered sugar. The colors, we had the NEON ones too, were quite something with his help.
We worked on his fine motor skills with having him help cut the “worms”. Not exactly uniform shapes and sizes but a great project to share with him. This again goes to his violin teacher and he’s excited to dress up the jar with his CARS stickers.
I didn’t change the recipie much except used just a little less peppermint extract and a little more milk just because it seemed to need it.
I’m a single working mom and I’m finding that baking and cooking with my son has been one of my biggest joys. I love to show him your pictures and we decided togehter what to make. He always wants something with chocolate chips in it hence your pumpkin bundt cake was perfect timing.
Keep up the great work – I, for one, really appreciate it!
Glad they were a hit and that you (and your son) enjoyed!
i looked for peppermint extracts in baking and confectionery supplies shops in my region and the only sell peppermint oil, they said it’s the same, is it okay as a substitute? thanks
probably will be fine – but I haven’t tried it, so use it sparingly to begin with!
I used peppermint oil I had (from doTERRA), and they turned out perfect with only a few drops.
However, after I cut them apart and went to go place them in an “air tight container” for storage, they all stuck together. Am I missing something? I tried coating them in powdered sugar (yuck and didn’t work anyway). I still have most of my wrapped up balls waiting for processing (I did a double batch, and only rolled out a little – thank gooness). So, I’m hoping that someone can tell me how to keep them “unstuck” from each other.
Glad the peppermint oil worked in terms of flavor – maybe it contributed to the sticky situation? Not sure. Although mine were a tiny bit sticky and yes, they do stick together a tiny bit, they can easily be pulled apart. After all, this is sugar we’re working with here and it’s sticky.
Your dough/batter may be a bit moister than mine…I’d let them just sit out, exposed to the air, so they dry a bit maybe & help the sticky issue.
I love mints! Do you know those mints (circular) that tasted of wintergreen? I recently acquired some wintergreen food flavoring… and I think I know just the recipe to replicate! Thanks!
~ nerdwithtaste.wordpress.com
I ran across this recipe while looking for mints to make for a bridal shower. Surpriseingly enough I had all the ingredients on hand. I made a test batch tonight. They were incredibly easy to make. I only had about half of the amount of peppermint extract that is needed for the recipe. After making them and tasting them tonight I think the entire 1/2 teaspoon may have been to strong for my taste. However, the flavor may change after the dry. Mine, also, seemed to be salty even though I used unsalted butter. I did use the Wilton food coloring paste and it mixed extremely well. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you tried the recipe and enjoyed it and yes, every brand of extract will vary in intensity as well as taste preferences and this is definitely one of those ‘to taste’ recipes! Just a tiny tiny pinch of salt is all you need, if any, and again, salting is always highly subjective, too. Glad you liked them!
Have you tried adding the food coloring to the milk before you add it to the dry ingredients it may make the coloring more even…I am going to make these tonight and I will let you know. I know you would only get one color out of the batch but for a big project like a wedding or if someone only like the “Pink” ones…LOL it may work.
I use some of the ‘neon’ food coloring drops and they are VERY intense. The pink is ridiculously bright so just add it when I indicate in the recipe but I’m sure you could add it when you’re saying too, but yes, you only get one batch. However, the ones I use, in person, *can* be blindingly bright if I wanted them to be, added when indicated in the recipe.
These look AMAZING. I think I will try them this weekend. One question though, how long do the mints have to be in the refrigerator, if you aren’t going to color them?
Just long enough to firm up so you can roll them out; it’s butter and sugar so use your judgment.
I’m allergic to any mint, so I guess I can leave it out without causing some bizarre issue? Also, would these freeze well? Thanks!
If you don’t add mint extract when making mints, you don’t really have…mints. It’s hard to make mints without using mint :)
They freeze fine, though.
Do you use unsalted butter for this recipe?
Thank you!
Yes unsalted!