Homemade Peppermint Patties

I haven’t had a lot of time to do Christmas baking. When the women at my church planned a cookie exchange, I looked for something that would be gluten-free since I know several people with gluten intolerance of some kind or another. I also wanted something that would give me leftovers I’d really enjoy. Once I saw this recipe, I knew I had to make homemade peppermint patties.

If you make things the right way, these will be really easy. However, I found several ways to screw them up. If you’d really like to waste some time, you could first try using expired evaporated milk in the recipe. After that makes a chunky mess, you might try using non-expired evaporated milk that you sent your husband to the grocery store to get–twice. When you’ve become frustrated and added way too many cups of powdered sugar to your mixture, resulting in about a quart of peppermint glaze, you may realize that you probably didn’t remember the recipe you read the day before and that you probably need condensed milk–which you had before you sent your husband to the store, and which you had two of the first time he returned from the store. You could slam around the kitchen for a while and tell your husband you don’t want to talk about it.

When you scoop the minty “dough” out into little balls, you might think that your beloved Silpats will make it so you don’t need to grease your cookie sheet. You will be wrong. And when you take your mint patties out of the freezer 20 minutes later and dip them into the chocolate you specifically made sure wasn’t too hot, they’ll be a floppy mess because, apparently, flattening the patties with a cup to make them the size of a York peppermint patty is not conducive to chocolate dipping. At this point, you’ll wad them up into balls in your hands, refreeze them, and dip the rest. And you will be happy you went to all that trouble because you will have a fridge full of peppermint patties.

Summary of recipe notes:

• Condensed milk–NOT evaporated. I used sweetened condensed milk and it worked fine.
• Grease the waxed paper, parchment paper, or Silpats you drop your mint “dough” on.
• Use a small cookie scoop to have nice, bite sized mints.
• Do not smash the balls of mint “dough.”
• Melt the chocolate right after you put the mint patties in the freezer so it cools before you dip the patties.
• I used trans-fat free shortening with my chocolate chips. You could probably use vegetable oil, too.
• Trade out the mint extract for vanilla, almond, or whatever flavor you like to customize your patties.