We love making our own holiday treats from Candied Pecans to Lemon Bars. If you’re a fan of homemade candy recipes, you will love these melt-in-your-mouth cream cheese mints. This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.
Old Fashioned Cream Cheese Mints
Who else has fond memories of popping these classic, creamy mint candies into their mouths and letting them melt? If you loved old-fashioned cream cheese mints as a kid, get your stand mixer ready, because today we’re making them from scratch. Cream cheese candies have a nostalgic, sweet peppermint flavor that, for us, conjures up thoughts of holiday charcuterie boards and Christmas dessert spreads. They are also perfect for Easter, baby showers, bridal showers, and weddings. These cute mint candies also make the perfect homemade gift. We’ll wrap them up to give to teachers, neighbors, and friends. We especially love this recipe because there’s no fussing with temperatures or boiling involved, and you can even get the kids involved. It’s that easy!
What Are Cream Cheese Mints?
Also called wedding mints or buttermints, cream cheese mints are a creamy, melt-in-your-mouth candy. You’ll often see them shaped like little pillows in pastel colors. They’re easy to make with just 5 ingredients and great for sharing and gifting.
Ingredients
This recipe makes approximately 90-100 mints, but you can definitely halve the ingredients if you’d prefer a smaller batch. Below is an overview of what you’ll need to make them, with the full measurements available in the recipe card below the post.
Cream Cheese – You’ll want to use full-fat cream cheese for this recipe. Use the kind that comes in blocks and not the spreadable tubs. Butter – I recommend using unsalted butter. Both the butter and cream cheese will need to be softened to room temperature before you start. Powdered Sugar – Also called confectioner’s sugar. You’ll need about 2 pounds of powdered sugar, plus a bit extra when you’re pressing out the mints (see my tip below). Salt – I find that a pinch of fine sea salt helps to balance the sweet flavors. Peppermint Extract – Make sure you’re using food-grade “pure peppermint extract“, and not essential oils. Food Coloring – This is optional. I recommend using gel food dyes to color your cream cheese mints, as a little goes a long way.
Pro Tip: If you prefer to measure out your powdered sugar with a kitchen scale, 4 cups of powdered sugar is roughly equal to 1 pound.
How to Soften Cream Cheese Quickly?
We’ve all been there: You go to start a recipe that calls for room-temperature ingredients, only to realize that you forgot to take the cream cheese or butter out of the fridge ahead of time. Don’t worry, here’s how to speed-soften your cream cheese and butter if needed: Method: First, dice the cold blocks of cream cheese and butter them up into small pieces. Cover it with a sheet of plastic wrap, and let it sit at room temperature until soft, about 20-30 minutes.
How to Make Cream Cheese Mints
Our homemade cream cheese mints come together easily in a stand mixer. If you don’t have a mixer, however, don’t worry. It will take a bit longer and requires some elbow grease, but you can still make them with a hand-held mixer although you’ll have to switch to a firm spatula when the mixture gets too thick. We’ll start by preparing the dough mixture for the cream cheese mints: Pro Tip: To prevent cracks in the dough, make sure to beat the mixture adequately, allowing the powdered sugar to really blend together with the cream cheese and peppermint extract. We beat for an extra 2 minutes once the dough is combined. The resulting mints will be creamier with a melt-in-your-mouth consistency and smoother edges.
Coloring Cream Cheese Mints
If you’re coloring your mints, separate portions of dough into separate bowls, one for each color. Add one drop of color to each bowl, and stir it in. You can add more or even less dye depending on the shade you’re going for. Pro Tip: Gel food coloring is best, as it has a thicker consistency that won’t thin out the dough. It’s also super concentrated. Start with 1 drop at a time or even less if you’re looking for light pastel colors (use a toothpick to add a little smear of color at a time). You can always add more if you’d prefer deeper-colored mints.
Shaping the Mints
Once your dough is prepped and colored, all that’s left is to shape it into mints. This is very easy and only takes a few quick steps:
Common Questions
Make-Ahead
Anticipating a special occasion? Cream cheese mints are an easy after-dinner treat or holiday gift that you can make ahead to either refrigerate or freeze:
To Refrigerate: Once they’ve dried, these homemade mints can be stored airtight in the fridge for up to one month. Freezing: You can also freeze cream cheese mints for up to 6 months. Store them in an airtight container or freezer bag and thaw them in the fridge. Gifting: These cream cheese mints are naturally beautiful so you can transfer them to these clear gift bags, tie the top and delight your friends, family, and neighbors.
How excited are you to try these homemade cream cheese mints? Let us know how it goes in the comments and if you share this on social, don’t forget to tag me so I can see your beautiful homemade mints.
More Homemade Holiday Treats
These are the special occasion-worthy sweet treats that have become traditional for the Holidays. We can’t get enough of these nostalgic treats:
Strawberry Pretzel Salad Pecan Pie Bars Rice Krispie Treats Carrot Cake Cupcakes Chocolate Covered Strawberries Easy Sugar Cookies Date Snickers
