Grinch Mints: Christmas Cream Cheese Peppermints

Christmas is my favorite time of year. Everything about it rocks. This year were actually spending the week before Christmas at Disney World, and Im E C S T A T I C.

But, its kind of messing with my other to-dos! I have a million things I wanted to do this Christmas season, and one of them was getting a treat plate to all of our friends and neighbors! But rather than having one giant baking day where I make a huge mess, Im trying to space out the making and baking as much as possible! So first on the list were these adorable cream cheese peppermints! These are a great addition to any treat plate! Theyre colorful, add a little variety, and are the perfect little sweet bite! Theyre especially awesome for anyone who is gluten-free and cant enjoy most of the cookies on the plate. They look adorable, next to my other favorite unique cookie: Forgotten Cookies.

Heres why I love Grinch Mints though:

Easy to make
Only three ingredients (not counting food coloring)
The recipe is easy to double and easy to halve
No baking required
Kids can easily help
You can make them waaaay in advance and even freeze them for up to a month.
Theyre great at other holidays too

Now, first things first: You need cream cheese, powdered sugar, and peppermint extract.

You can make as much or as little as you want.

To turn out 100-120 little mints (a perfect amount) youll need 4 oz of cream cheese and 4 cups of powdered sugar. (to increase or decrease this recipe, just match each ounce of cream cheese to 1 cup of powdered sugar. No hard maths here. I use half a teaspoon of peppermint extract for this quantity. You can use more or less depending on how you feel about peppermint.

You can easily mix this by hand, but I prefer to use my kitchen aid with the dough hook. img_3468

It makes it crazy easy and fast to mix up. I just add 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time.

If youre a silly goose like I am, youll forget that youre making two colors, and youll have to take the dough out and cut it in half so you can dye each half.

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This is the nuttiest little dough!

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Its only cream cheese and powdered sugar, yet it feels like pizza dough at first!

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Once I have my dough dyed, I work quickly to portion it out using a small scoop. My scoop is the small scoop from Pampered Chef. Its about 1 tbsp.

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You can see how this dough is drying out quickly. Thats just cream cheese mints doin what cream cheese mints do. Itll damped up when you handle it.

I cut each of these tbsp. portions into equal-ish 4 pieces. Then I roll those smaller pieces between my hands to make a smooth ball. I lay them onto a non-stick baking sheet and press a fork into the top to flatten the balls.

Im sure your kiddos would be so happy to be the ball rollers or the ball flatteners! If you have multiple kids, those jobs could easily be given out!

My kids were not around to help me. Little turkeys went outside to play.

Anyways, once youre done, just leave them out for the rest of the day and overnight! Theyll dry up and have the best crispy texture that just melts in your mouth.

Theyre such a sweet treat!

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Heres a printable recipe! And a link to one of my other favorite no-bake treats: Special K Cookies! Theyre a peanut butter lovers dream!

Cream Cheese Peppermints

  • Servings: 100-120
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
4 c. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. peppermint extract

optional: food coloring of choice

Notes: I prefer to use my Kitchen Aid (dough hook) to mix this, but theyre quite easy to do by hand as well! You just need a little extra elbow grease. You can easily increase or decrease this recipe; the amount of powdered sugar directly correlates with the cream cheese: 1 oz. = 1 c. And you can add the extract to taste!

Directions:
1. Add peppermint extract to softened cream cheese and mix to incorporate. You can add the food coloring at this time, keeping in mind that it will end up lighter in the end. I recommend doing this at this point.
2. 1 c. at a time, add the powdered sugar. If youre doing the mixing by hand, youll likely need to knead the dough by hand towards the end.
3. When the dough is mixed and smooth, make uniformly sized balls, by pinching off, portioning out and cutting (my method), or rolling out and cutting. About 1/2 a tsp. in size is perfect.
4. Roll each little ball in the palm of your hands until its smooth. Place on a non-stick baking sheet or one lined with parchment paper and flatten. You can use the bottom of a glass for a smooth mint or a fork for a textured mint.
5. Continue until all dough is used up.
6. Let them sit out at room temp for the rest of the day, then cover and leave out all night. In the morning, store them in an airtight container for up to a month in the fridge or freezer.