Peppermint Creams

These are like After Eights on steroids. Creamy, sweet and minty, with a crunchy chocolate shell. I all at once love them and am a little intimidated by the sugar content. Definitely need to be eaten in moderation!

For me, the best Christmas flavours are chocolate and mint, and these fit nicely on my festive table alongside After Eights, Thorntons mint collection and mint Matchmakers!

These aren’t the simplest to make, I initially made the error of trying to cut several at once, and when I went back to the first ones I had cut, to move them to the tray, they were already too sticky to move.  You’ll need a lot of icing sugar to cut them out easily. If you’re still struggling, pop the rolled out dough in the freezer for a few minutes to firm up.

They are TOTALLY worth the effort!

Ingredients

• 200ml condensed milk
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
• 500g icing sugar
• 200g dark chocolate
• Sprinkles to decorate

Makes just over 2 dozen

Method

Place the condensed milk, peppermint, vanilla sugar in a bowl.

Add half  the icing sugar and beat with a mixer on a low speed. 

Add the remaining icing sugar until you get a dough.

Lay out some greaseproof paper and sprinkle icing sugar on top.

Tip out the dough onto the prepared paper and sprinkle it liberally with icing sugar.

Roll out dough to 1cm thick and then cut out one at a time with a round cookie cutter.

Transfer one at a time to a baking tray lined with greaseproof.

Place in the freezer when you’ve filled a tray, and allow to sit there and firm up for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile melt the chocolate.

Decorate with chocolate and sprinkles!