When I was a kid, I thought that if a restaurant had a dish of butter mints near the door on the way out, then it was a sign of fine dining. After dinner mints still come in a wide variety of styles and flavors. Party mints (those cute little pastel colored mints), fancy jelly mints, and the rare but equally delicious black anise mints. However, my favorite of all time has to be butter mints. I'm not sure if it was because of the name and that they looked like little pats of butter to me or that they had a tinge of salty butter flavor mixed with that melt-in-the-mouth mint flavor. Either way, they have always been a favorite of mine.
Once in a while, when I was quite young, I would go with my Mom to visit elderly relatives. You could always bet they would have a shiny cut glass candy dish sitting on a coffee table filled with something interesting. I would eye it with anticipation in hopes that they would notice and offer me whatever was in that dish. There were times when the mint was old and perhaps stale (based on how hard they were) but I would savor it in my mouth and let it melt slowly - which sometimes took the duration of the visit and kept me well behaved!
Now that I am all grown up, I still crave many of those flavors from my childhood. Butter mint being no exception to that rule. Here, I mixed cool, creamy ice cream with a light butter mint flavor followed with crushed party mints swirled around. A perfect way to take your "everyday" meal and turn it into a fine dining experience... I'm jus' sayin'!
Butter Mint Ice Cream
1 1/2 Cups of milk
1 1/8 Cup of sugar
3 Cups of heavy cream
1 1/2 TBSP of Butter extract
1 Tbsp Of Mint Extract
~ Crush in at the end of ice cream process 3/4 Cup of Crushed Party Mints or Butter Mints
Combine all until sugar is dissolved. Then follow manufacturer's directions for the ice cream maker.
