Homemade Butter Mints

I have spent lots of time in the kitchen lately, so you'll be seeing quite a few recipes over the next week or so.  These fun (and delicious) little butter mints are very easy yet impressive.  The pink ones were made as favors for our family's Valentine-making session this weekend, and Eli made the blue/white ones for a friend's birthday. 

Homemade Butter Mints

4 1/2 C. confectioner's sugar
1/2 C. butter, softened
2 tabl. milk
1 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract (I used 1 1/2 tsp. water with 8 drops of peppermint oil - highly concentrated flavoring.)
Liquid food coloring (I used 6 drops of McCormick's neon pink for my batch, and Eli used 5 or 6 drops of McCormick's regular blue food coloring for his.  He made one recipe/batch and colored half of it blue, the rest was left as is for white mints.)

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  In a mixer, combine sugar, butter, milk and extract.  Mix until they form a small ball.  If desired, divide the dough into portions and add food coloring, kneading it into dough.  (If dough is sticky at all, add a bit of 10X sugar to hands.)  Roll/pat walnut-size lumps of dough into 1/2-1" thick ropes.  Cut each rope into desired size pieces.  Arrange pieces on parchment paper and let sit uncovered overnight.  Once dry, store in shallow, airtight tin.  (The photo shows them in a jar, but we did transfer to a tin.)