Spring Break Fun

Maybe the picture didn’t intrigue you and make you want to read more...but, you should!

This recipe for Butter Mints is amazing. It’s not the taste, although they are good if you like butter mints, but the WOW factor here is the amount of time it will keep your children busy.

When I was young, a good friend introduced me to the wonders of homemade butter mints and, luckily, I didn’t lose the recipe because this is a great activity for children. Depending on the age of your children, they can do a lot of this all by themselves.

With spring break time upon us, (and a need for activities for the children who are home all week) you just might want to make sure you have the ingredients on hand!

Butter Mints

1/3 cups light corn syrup

1/4 cup butter—room temperature

1 tsp. peppermint extract

1/2 tsp. salt

1 pound powdered sugar

food coloring

Mix all ingredients except food coloring to make your dough—I prefer to use my Kitchen-Aid because it does it quickly, but this can be mixed by hand as well.

Decide how many different colors you want and divide the dough into that number of dough balls.

Make a well in the dough with your finger and add food coloring.

Carefully knead the dough in a glass bowl (so the food coloring won’t stain it). As you slowly knead the dough, you will disperse the food coloring and, hopefully, it won't stain your fingers.

Go slow so it doesn’t squirt out at you!

Knead until the food coloring has completely colored the dough.

Repeat for each of the dough balls/colors you would like.

To prevent drying, wrap each dough ball in cellophane until you are ready to use it.

Put wax paper on your work surface so you don’t get food coloring on it.

Use tiny cookie cutters, kitchen tools and your imagination to make shapes out of the dough.

This is the part where my children were captivated for quite a while—over an hour! And, if they happened to sneak a taste or two, it didn't matter at all because this really is food, albeit sugary food!

When finished making shapes, store butter mints in an airtight container. The thought of eating these after my chlildren played with the dough this much turned my stomach just a little, but they happily ate them up for treats over the next couple of weeks. The last batch we made lasted for two plus weeks, but I wouldn’t really recommend that long—maybe a week!?

Any activity keeps all of my children busy for such a long time is a keeper for me!

I'm linking this idea to THESE great link parties!