Minty Milk Recipes

ST. PATRICK'S DAY MINT SHAKES

Steps:

• Blend the ice cream, milk, peppermint extract, vanilla and food coloring in a blender until smooth. Pour into one or two serving glasses and garnish with whipped cream and sanding sugar.

OLD-FASHIONED BUTTER MINTS

Steps:

• To the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and salt and beat for 1 minute on medium-high speed.
• Add 3 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar, milk, peppermint, and beat on medium-low speed until a dough forms. If the dough seems wet, add additional confectioners' sugar until dough combines (I use 3 1/2 cups sugar). The dough will be crumbly but will come together when pinched and squeezed into a ball.
• Taste the batter. If you want a more intense mint flavor, add additional mint extract, to taste (see note below).
• Remove dough from the mixer, separate it into 1 to 4 smaller balls, and add one ball back into the mixer. Add the food coloring of your choice to the ball by squirting the droplets on top of the dough (careful when you turn on the mixer), and paddle on low speed until coloring is well-blended. Coloring will not blend completely into each and every speck of dough if examined extremely closely, but overall, mix until color is uniform. (I separated approximately two-thirds of the dough and made it green using about 15 drops green food coloring and made one-third of the dough red-pink by using about 7 drops red food coloring).
• Wash the mixing bowl and the paddle in between each color change and repeat until all the balls are colored.
• After the dough has been colored, either wrap it with plastic wrap and place it in an airtight container in the refrigerator to be rolled out later or roll it immediately.
• To shape the butter mints, place a golf-ball sized amount of dough in your hands and roll dough into long thin cylinders about 1 centimeter wide. Place cylinders on countertop and with a pizza cutter (or knife - be careful of your counter), slice cylinders into bite-sized pieces, approximately 1 centimeter long.
• Store mints in an airtight container in the refrigerator where they will keep for many weeks.

MINT ICE MILK

Steps:

• Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add mint; return water to a boil. Using a slotted spoon, immediately plunge mint into an ice-water bath. Lift out mint; drain well. Reserve ice-water bath.
• Bring milk to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add mint. Remove from heat. Let cool slightly.
• Working in batches (so that blender is never more than halfway full), blend milk mixture until mint is pureed, at least 1 minute per batch. Pass through a fine sieve into a stainless-steel bowl set in reserved ice-water bath.
• Stir simple syrup and corn syrup into milk-mint mixture. Let stand until cold, stirring occasionally. Refrigerate until very cold, at least 2 hours (or overnight).
• Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Transfer to an airtight container. Freeze at least 1 hour. Before serving, let stand at room temperature to soften slightly.

MINTY MILK

Steps:

• Warm a cup of low-fat milk on medium for 5-10 minutes. Mix in a few drops of peppermint extract.
• Break a candy cane into a couple of small pieces and chop it on your cutting board with a sharp knife.
• Whisk milk in the blender for 2 minutes or use a frother. Pour into cups and top with crushed peppermint. Let kids stir it with a small candy cane. One dairy serving licked for the day!