Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Edible Playdough

My 5 year old has been wanting to make peppermint creams for quite a while now. I told her we could make some in the holidays before Christmas. So, today was the day. Naturally all 3 kids wanted to be in on the action so I set them up to make a batch each. That worked out great as the recipe suggests dividing it up to make 3 colours. This way they could make 1 colour each and I knew we'd have plenty for "taste tests" as well as some leftover for Christmas Day.

It was such a simple recipe that it was perfect for even the 3 year old's involvement (with a bit of help from mum of course). His favourite part was the rolling and he made all kinds of shapes. Just like playdough really. Only it's safer to eat the finished product. :-)

For anyone interested, here's the recipe:

PEPPERMINT CREAMS

1 egg white
300g icing sugar
few drops of peppermint essence
food colouring (we made white, green and pink)

Whisk egg white in a bowl until light and frothy

Sift icing sugar and add gradually to egg white

Add peppermint essence and food colouring (if desired) - at this point you can divide your mix into 3 parts to make different colours if you desire

Kneed into a smooth ball - and until food colouring is evenly mixed

Roll into smooth balls, place on a baking tray and flatten with a fork


We plan to half dip ours in melted chocolate when they're set

I'm sure the kids are going to love eating their own creations on Christmas Day. And what's better is that they're so cheap. I usually spend around $6 on buying after dinner mints to have for Christmas. We already had the peppermint essence and food colouring and free eggs from our chooks so all up these cost me less than $1.00 to make the 3 batches. A little more if you count the chocolate but dark chcolate is on my list of "use it up" items so as an added bonus I get some help using up ingredients I'd bought for past baking adventures.

3 comments:

emma.jean said...

Sounds great, Jodi. Just wondering - do you put them in the fridge or freezer to set?

lightening said...

I put them in the fridge. The kids have just dipped them so that they're half covered in chocolate and all but one batch were set.

The recipe does say to leave them overnight to set though.

emma.jean said...

Thanks for that. I did buy a box of peppermint creams from Priceline for $2 (although we've been eating our way through them already lol) but sounds like it might be a fun little project. :)