Peppermint Patties

Directions

Line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper and set them aside.

In a bowl add the powdered sugar, condensed milk, peppermint extract and ½ teaspoon vanilla and stir with a spoon until as well combined as you can get it.  Then set the spoon aside and get your (clean) hands in there and really work it until it’s truly combined.  Be aware that the mixture will be really dense/thick.  Put it in the fridge for a half hour to let it get a little harder.  Wash your hands – they’ll be a mess.

When you’re ready to work with the dough take some additional powdered sugar and cover your work surface with it, kind of like what you do when you put flour down. 

Take the dough from the bowl, put it on your work surface and knead it a bit more until you’ve got a smooth ball.  Get out a rolling pin, dust that with more powdered sugar and roll out the dough to about ¼ to 1/3 inch thick and using a cookie cutter, cut out pieces.  Traditionally it’s just a circle but honestly you can use any shape you want – just remember that you’re making pieces of candy so you don’t want them too big.  I used hearts in a couple different sizes because, honestly, that’s what I could find in my VERY cluttered cupboard.

After you’ve cut pieces out the first time, gather up all the scraps, press them into another ball, roll the dough out again and cut more pieces.  Keep doing this until you’ve used up all your dough.

Put each piece you’ve cut out on the parchment-covered baking sheets and put them in the fridge for a half hour to an hour to harden up. 

Take this time to clean up the work surface because if you’re anything like me there’s probably powdered sugar everywhere.

When you’re ready to finish, break up the chocolate and put it along with the butter and the remaining ½ teaspoon of vanilla into a bowl.  We want to melt the chocolate, so put the bowl in the microwave for about 20 seconds then take it out and stir.  Keep doing this until the chocolate is almost fully melted – at that point take it out for the last time and keep stirring until the last bits melt.

Take your cookie sheets out of the fridge and dip each pattie into the melted chocolate.  Get it fully covered, remove it from the chocolate with a fork and put it back onto the cookie sheet.  Do this with all the patties, then lightly sprinkle each with a little sea salt.

Put the candies back into the fridge for another hour to completely cool, then move them to an airtight container.  Be sure to keep them in the fridge or in a cool area so they don’t get all sticky and melty.  

Depending on how big you make the candies, you should get about 100 of them from this recipe!