These Homemade Butter Mints are smooth, velvety, and melt-in-your-mouth amazing! Such a fun thing to make during the holidays!

I have been so excited to share these Homemade Buttermints with you. I’ve wanted to include them in my 12 Days of Sugar for the past couple years and for some reason I just haven’t. Probably because my list of things I want to make just continues to grow.

The fact of the matter is I could easily do the 25 Days of Sugar if I really wanted to, but I certainly don’t want to be the cause of cavities, sugar comas galore and/or diet failures, etc.

Anyway, these buttermints kind of hold a special place in my heart because my mom made them growing up. I remember many, many times helping her with these. . . pulling & snipping, pulling & snipping, pulling & snipping. These actually are simple to make, but you just have to work fast at the end when you’re pulling the candy and then forming it into ropes and cutting it into pieces.

Now make sure you cook these to the right temperature. . . it’s highly important!

The reason I say that is because last year when we had our annual candy making day, we made these and had a wee bit of a problem. My mom had it in her head that you just cook the mixture to a softball stage, so that’s what we did.

When the mixture was cool enough to start pulling, it seemed waaaaay stickier than normal. But we kept pulling and pulling and were just making a sticky mess! We rubbed butter on our hands, but that didn’t work, we were just getting the sticky, sugar mixture stuck to us everywhere. It was a disaster to say the least. We were laughing so hard and I’m sure we looked like complete imbeciles.

One of my sons (none of us can remember which one it was lol!) came home and saw what a huge sticky mess we all were and just walked away laughing.

The mixture eventually firmed up, lost its glossy look and we were able to form it into ropes and snip it into pieces. It did however, take a lot longer for the mints to finally mellow to where they kind of melted in your mouth instead of being chewy.

Anyway, good memories I tell ya.

If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can always to the cold water test. Click here for some great tips on how to test candy without a thermometer.

You really should give these a try. They are so much better than store bought.

Homemade Buttermints

Ingredients

3 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup cold water
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract
Food coloring (optional) (optional)

Instructions

In a heavy-bottomed, large saucepan combine sugar, butter, water and corn syrup. Cook over medium heat, stirring until sugar is completely dissolved. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil.
Remove lid and wipe down any sugar crystals on the sides of the pan using a wet pastry brush. Continue cooking over medium to medium-low heat (you want the mixture to continue boiling, but just a soft boil, not a rolling boil), without stirring until mixture reaches 254 degrees (hard ball stage).
Pour onto a buttered marble slab or buttered cookie sheet. DO NOT SCRAPE PAN!
Sprinkle with the peppermint extract and 2 to 3 drops of desired food coloring, but don't stir it in yet.
When mixture is cool enough to handle, pull it like taffy until it is firm, but elastic and loses its gloss. Using your hands and working very quickly, divide the piece you've been pulling into smaller chunks and using your hands, roll into ropes about 1/2-inch in diameter. Using scissors, cut ropes into 1/2 inch pieces. Store in a covered, airtight container and let mints mellow for 24 to 36 hours.

Recipe Notes

These mints are definitely easier if you have a second or third person there helping you pull the candy mixture once it's cooled. Divide it into chunks and let each person pull their own chunk. Then I like to divide the piece I was pulling into two or three pieces to make the ropes.