The stalwart Peppermint Cream

One of my earliest school memories is in making peppermint creams in the small ‘cooking’ kitchen of my primary school. I suppose cooking is a grand word for what is essentially mixing, squishing and leaving, but we all have to start somewhere.

There are two entwined recipes here; as a parent I make my fondants with raw egg white, but as a minder I’d have substituted in water and put up with them going crinkly around the edges.  I’m lucky though, to have a secret weapon in my garden. For some two years now we’ve been raising the welikeplay HQ chickens, and so I can guarantee really fresh, healthy and above all salmonella-free eggs.

You will need
half a box of icing sugar
1 smallish egg (or 5 tblsp water)
a couple of drops of peppermint essence and a drop of food colouring
greaseproof parchment lightly sprayed with sunflower oil

All clean and ready to cook? Ask for about 200g of sugar to be sifted into a bowl; step to one side of the ensuing white fug and separate out the egg white. I left the yolk for the evenings mashed potatoes, most scrummy. Whisk the white with a fork until its the consistently of a good latte then step through the cloud of sugar to add it to the top of the pile. Distract the kid by handing them the fork while you pop in a couple of drops of peppermint and a drop of colour; an experience that left me smelling like a toothpaste factory has taught me there are some jobs that a growed-up doesn’t have to share. Mixy-mix until you have a paste, sifting in more sugar until you have a dough.

Dust the work-surface with a little more icing and fetch the rolling pins (or use an unopened tin of beans), roll and shape with cutters or - my favourite - plastic ikea knives.  Place on greaseproof parchment and leave to dry for an hour or two  and decant into tupperware type box.  Keep refrigerated and eat by nightfall of the next day.

Enjoy

tag... play for today, 2up, 3up, cooking