Mint & Raspberry Patties

I’ve been seeing recipes for homemade peppermint patties recently, which I find very exciting. But you know what I like better than peppermint? Regular ol’ mint. When I set out to make these candies, I envisioned something akin to an Andes mint, in patty form. And while I was at it, I figured I would make some raspberry ones as well.

I think candy is one of the best edible gifts to give. Cookies, breads, and cupcakes are all delicious, but candy is an entirely different level of impressive. And for good reason. It requires attention, patience, and a mild amount of anal-retentivity. Thank god I am extremely anal retentive, which cancels out my short attention span and lack of patience.

These candies turned out quite well. And despite the amount of cursing that occurred while I was trying to temper chocolate at 6:30 p.m. when I should have been focusing on dinner, I actually did have a lot of fun making these. When I begin to get a semi-tedious culinary technique down, that’s when the television narrator starts running in my head. “Notice how Carey places the candy on the very edge of the fork before dipping it into the chocolate . . . ” And in the end, the effort is worth it when you hear someone say, “Really? You made these?”

Mint & Raspberry Patties
(adapted from Food.com)

yield: approximately 120 patties

• 2 lbs confectionery sugar
• 6 tbsp butter, softened
• 2 tsp mint extract
• 2 tsp raspberry extract
• ½ cup of evaporated milk
• 24 oz. dark chocolate
• 12 oz. white chocolate
• 4 tbsp shortening
• green and red food coloring

Divide, sugar, butter, and milk in half. Mix together in two separate bowls until well-combined. (Mixture should be soft enough to mold while still holding its shape.) Add a few drops of green food coloring to one bowl and a few drops of red to another, and stir until color is evenly distributed. Form into 1 inch balls and place a couple inches apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, then flatten with the bottom of a jar or glass.

Chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Before you begin working with the chocolate, you want to make sure you have everything set up. Remove the candies from the fridge, get a fork, and set up a few sheets of wax paper to transfer the patties to after you’ve dipped them in chocolate.

To temper chocolate: Coarsely chop chocolate with a knife or in a food processor. Set up your double boiler. When water in the bottom pan reaches a simmer, place ¾ of the chocolate in the top pan. When chocolate begins to melt, add in shortening and stir with a rubber spatula. As soon as chocolate reaches 115°, remove from heat, add in remaining ¼ of chocolate, and stir continuously until dissolved. At this point, you need to get the chocolate down to somewhere between 88–91°. The quickest way to do this is to pour a good amount of the chocolate out on a marble pastry board and move it around with a large dough scraper (like they do on tv!). This is a lot of fun, but it is also messy, and has the potential for disaster. (I’ve gotten lost in the fun of feeling like a professional chocolatier and had my chocolate cool too much and turn to sludge.) I also wasn’t sure if I would have enough chocolate for all of the candies, and I didn’t want to waste any. So I decided to cool the chocolate down by continuously stirring it and keeping an eye on the temperature. This took quite a long time (cue cursing). I lost patience around 95° and decided to go for it, and they turned out just fine.

I developed a pretty good dipping technique about 40 candies in. Place the candies as close as you can to the edge of the work without them falling off. Tilt your pot of chocolate sideways for easier dipping. Dunk candy in until it is just covered. Remove it and let excess chocolate drip off, first straight, then tilt the fork side to side. Scrape bottom of candy along the rim of the pot to remove any excess from the bottom, then place on wax paper. Make sure you keep the mint and raspberry separate so you know which are which!

Let candies cool for a few hours, or overnight. Remove them from the wax paper and transfer to new sheets of wax paper, all mint on one and all raspberry on another. Melt white chocolate in double boiler. One completely melted, remove from heat and divide evenly between two bowls. Add a few drops of green food coloring to one and red food coloring to another. Piping the chocolate over top of the candies works best, but using a spoon works fine as well (and doesn’t waste as much chocolate). Let them cool for a few hours, then start handing them out!