Homemade Sweetheart Candy Mints

I took a mint candy recipe from AllHomemadeCookies.com, and used it to make some sweetheart type candies. They're not exactly like the Valentine standbys, but I don't think anyone will complain around here.

The mint recipe called for:

• 1 cup sugar
  
• 4 tablespoons water
  
• 1 cup powdered sugar
  
• peppermint extract

You bring the granulated sugar, and water to a boil, remove it from the heat, add the powdered sugar, and peppermint extract, and then drop it in small balls onto wax paper to cool.

I deviated from the original a bit, by dividing the mixture in half, after adding the powdered sugar. I added a drop of peppermint extract to one half, and to the other I added several drops of strawberry extract, and four drops of red food coloring.

Instead of dropping the dough directly onto the wax paper, I waited a second for it to cool enough to handle, and then I rolled it into balls, and formed them into hearts, play dough style.

The dough became crumbly, and unworkable as it cooled, but 5 seconds in the microwave was enough to soften it back up.

When the hearts had cooled, and hardened for 15 minutes, or so, I used edible food markers to write sweethearty type messages on them. Now that I have a feel for how it works, I hope to give the children a chance to make their own batch of sweethearts. If nothing else, it will be a good spelling, and handwriting exercise.

It's great to be a homeschooler.