Thursday, April 9, 2020

Home Made Peppermints

Water is the theme of cooking this week.

Again, a recipe that is perfect for the dairy allergy folks out there: water-based soft peppermints.


How many trays of these homemade peppermints have I made in my life?! 
  
Plenty.

But not recently. 

And then Duncan, in these times of home isolation, put in the request for this childhood classic.   

In a moment of weakness, I headed to the kitchen and put these together at the speed of light.

So easy!

Just a bit of water...
...and gelatin...
...and peppermint flavouring...
...and food colouring (isn't food colouring one of the 4 food groups?!)
...and ICING SUGAR.

Here is the recipe I grew up with.  I love seeing Mabel Hull's name here on the recipe.  It brings back lots of memories of interacting with all the old women at church.  Hmmm...... It cracks me up to say "old woman" outloud, and realize that they were all younger then than I am now!  :-)

My comments on the recipe?

  • You don't need a double boiler.  Just through 1/3 cup of H2O and one envelope of gelatine into a small saucepan on the stove, and turn on the heat.  
  • As the water warms, the gelatine will dissolve (the water will turn from cloudy to clear....nice 'science moment' if working with kids). 
  • You are good to go!  Add as much or as little peppermint extract (or oil of peppermint) as you want.  Experiment! (i probably use 1/4 tsp).  And colour is all!   I always let the kids experiment with mixing the colours.
  • Pour into a largish bowl, and start adding icing sugar.  It is easy to stir at the beginning, but you will eventually have to get your hands in and knead it.  Expect to use maybe 3/4 of a bag of sugar.  Keep adding til the dough is nice and plastic.
  • And then, the fun! (perfect activity for kids). Roll into snake shapes, and use scissors to cut the rolls (snakes) into bite-sized pieces. 

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!


There is a little magic in the technique, but anyone can do it!  See the video for a demonstration of my Martha Stewart like skills and extreme photogenic comfort before the camera (or, for proof of the wisdom of my decision to pursue a life in the law instead).  And thanks Alex Carter-Johnson for your exceptional videography skills!   

4 comments:

  1. You did a fabulous job adding a video to your post. I wish I could do that.

    If it were me making the peppermints, I would have put in at least 1 tsp of peppermint flavouring, maybe more, to one batch.

    Since no one much eats sugar at your house, those are going to last for a long time.

    And I give thanks to Alex for the good video skills as well. Nicely done.

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  2. yes... i use more peppermint too. this time, i was using oil, not extract. it is stronger, so you use less. :0)

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  3. I would have no idea that you would have oil of peppermint in your house. Yes, just a few drops will do. My eyes are smarting, just thinking about uncapping that bottle.

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  4. That was so fun to watch. But why didnt you pop the last one into your mouth? I thought that was mandatory, in the recipe and all.

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