Homemade Butter Mints | A Must Have for Showers!

Are Butter Mints Hard to Make?

In a word, no. If you can make “regular frosting” with butter and powdered sugar (American Buttercream), you can make butter mints, no problem.

The only special skill you might need is “rolling dough into snakes,” and I think most of us mastered that particular skill in kindergarten.

How To Make Them:

Okay, here’s the rundown.

1. Mix butter and powdered sugar until creamy.
2. Add mint flavoring and a bit of milk.
3. Roll into snakes (refrigerate before slicing if too soft)
4. Slice snakes into individual mints.
5. Let dry out for a good 24 hours or so.

See? Easy!

A Couple of Notes on Making Homemade Shower Mints

1. Use salted butter to make butter mints. Why? Because if you use unsalted butter, your mints will be flat tasting and seem way too sweet. You could add a bit of salt, but I find Kerry Gold salted butter to have the perfect amount of salt for well-balanced butter mints.
2. Check your bottle of peppermint flavoring carefully. If you have peppermint oil, it’s super concentrated, so you’ll only need a very few drops to get a nice balance between mint and butter. If you have peppermint extract, you may need 1/2 to even 1 teaspoon since extract is much less potent than the oil.
3. Let your mints set up at room temperature. Don’t think you can dry the mints out in the oven. The butter will just melt out, and that is not at all what we want.

How to Make Marbled Butter Mints

If you look in the photos, the blue mints are marbled.

The look is easy to achieve.

Don’t mix the coloring all the way into the butter mint dough so some remains creamy white (or pale yellow if you are using Kerry Gold butter).

That’s it. So it’s arguably even easier to make marbled mints than it is to make regular ones!

Can I Make Unicorn Mints?

Yes! That’s easy too.

1. Take the ends or pieces that break off your snakes of dough and push them together.
2. Roll the different colored ends together into a snake.

And that’s it!

You can even make them sparkly by brushing them with some disco dust. That’s what I did and, although it doesn’t really show up well in the photos, they’re sparkly and pretty in real life.

Gel Colors Versus Liquid Colors

In the grocery store, you can get little bottles of liquid color. They work well, color-wise, but since they are a liquid, they will thin out your butter mint dough a little–and the more you use, the thinner it will get.

It will most likely not be a problem since you’re only going to be using a drop or two, but for other projects where you want to use more color, if the consistency of what you’re coloring is important, I’d forgo the liquid colors.

Gel colors are where it’s at, as far as I’m concerned.

Gel colors are much thicker than liquid colors, so even if you add a fair amount, the texture of your frosting won’t be affected.

If you are not a fan of using artificial colors, there are some natural food colors out there that you can get.

Or, you can just not color them at all. The yellow ones in the photos are actually not dyed at all. Thanks, Kerry Gold grass fed butter for being so yellow and sunny!

Let’s Make Some of This Candy!

I’m almost sad that I know how to make these guys.

They are basically little bits of rich butter frosting flavored with mint and allowed to harden. That’s it, for real! And now you know, too.

Questions?

If you have a question/questions about this or any other post, whether recipe or technique, don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’m happy to help.

You can leave a comment on the post, and I will respond within 24 hours. If you need an answer more urgently, please email me, and I will respond within about 4 hours (unless I’m sleeping) and often much more quickly than that.

Either way, I will answer as completely as I can. That’s why I’m here!

NOTE: Most of my recipes are written by weight and not volume, even the liquids.

Even though I try to provide you with volume measurements as well, I encourage you to buy a kitchen scale for ease of measuring, accuracy, and consistency.

This is the scale I use, love, and recommend. If you’re unsure, please read my post about how to use a food scale.

If you make this recipe and/or have enjoyed or learned from reading this post, I’d appreciate it if you could share this!

I have Convenient share buttons that float to the left on desk top and on mobile which invite you to share on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter or Yummly.

If you make the recipe, please consider rating it a rating and a review. You can do this via the recipe card in the post.

Reviews really help sell the recipe, and negative reviews help me tune into what people really want to have explained better, so any ratings and reviews are helpful!

Also feel free to tag me on Instagram at @onlinepastrychef with #pcorecipe so I can find your creation. Thank you!

Continue to Content

Butter Mints

Yield: 22 servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Drying Time: 1 day

Total Time: 1 day 15 minutes

Crunchy on the outside and creamy in the centers, these homemade butter mints taste like the ones you remember from the store, but are creamier and more buttery. So very good!

My version contains more butter than other versions I've seen--it makes them super creamy and beautifully buttery, meaning you can add a touch more mint without overpowering the butter flavor.

This also makes the dough a bit softer than others, which is why you may need to refrigerate it for a bit before rolling it out.

Print

Ingredients

• 6 oz salted butter (1 1/2 sticks or 3/4 an 8 oz block of butter), I used Kerry Gold at cool room temperature
• 1 pound confectioners sugar
• 1 Tablespoon milk (plant based or cow's milk)
• 4-6 drops peppermint oil*, to taste
• food coloring of choice, 1-2 drops per color
• extra confectioners sugar, for rolling

Instructions

1. Place the butter and powdered sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and mix on medium speed until smooth and creamy. This could take a few minutes, so be patient.
2. Add the tablespoon of milk and the peppermint oil. Be very sparing with the oil, because it is super strong. Mix in a couple of drops and then taste before adding more. (See notes)
3. Divide the mixture into as many portions as colors you want to make and stir/knead in the color evenly. Note that the colors will deepen some as the mints dry, so go easy if you want pastel colors.

How To Shape the Mints

1. If the mint dough seems too soft, wrap each color in a different sheet of plastic wrap, form into a tube about 1" thick and refrigerate for an hour or so. Otherwise, just go for it.
2. Liberally dust your work surface with powdered sugar and use your hands to roll the "dough" into long snakes. Sprinkle them with some powdered sugar and then use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut the ropes into 1/4" to 1/2" pieces.
3. Use your bench knife to scoop onto parchment lined baking sheets and allow to harden for 24 hours.

Notes

If you use peppermint extract rather than oil, you may need 1/2-1 teaspoon. Peppermint oil is extremely concentrated, so do not confuse the two. If you accidentally use 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint oil, your mints will pretty much be inedible.

Nutritional Information is calculated for roughly 19 mints, or 30 servings.

Recommended Products

As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.

• 
  Wilton Gel Icing Colors, Set of 12
• 
  KitchenAid 6 quart Stand Mixer
• 
  4.5 Quart Glass Bowl
• 
  KitchenAid Hand Mixer
• 
  Peppermint Oil
• 
  Powdered Food Coloring Kit - Set of 8 - Includes a List of Pro Uses by Cakegirls

Nutrition Information

Yield 22 Serving Size 1 oz
Amount Per Serving Calories 163Total Fat 7gSaturated Fat 4gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 2gCholesterol 17mgSodium 51mgCarbohydrates 26gFiber 0gSugar 26gProtein 0g

The stated nutritional information is provided as a courtesy. It is calculated through third party software and is intended as a guideline only.

And there you have it, friends. Delicious, buttery, minty butter mints. Make them for the next shower you go to.

Thanks for spending some time with me today, friends. Enjoy the mints, take care, and have a lovely day.

Want me to occasionally drop into your inbox? You can make that happen by signing up for my newsletter!

Sign up for The Inbox Pastry Chef Newsletter