Recipe(tried): Butter mints - old recipe

Wanda - here is an old family recipe for butter mints that are outstanding! They take a bit of practice to get the hang of "pulling" just right, though. If you don't know how to "pull" - you might want a newer-fashioned recipe like the one posted before mine. The best part about this recipe is that you won't be spending more than a few cents to make a couple of practice batches!

2 cups sugar
2 ounces (1/2 stick) butter
1 cup water
pinch salt
6 drops oil of peppermint (if you have an older bottle, add another drop)
food coloring as desired

You'll need 2 heavy pans and a clean marble slab or kitchen counter, which should be WELL buttered.

Boil water in one pan. Mix sugar and salt in the other pan. Pour boiling water into the sugar pan and cook 5 minutes. Add butter and cook on medium high heat until the mixture reaches 260 degrees on a candy thermometer.

Pour onto the buttered surface and add peppermint oil and food coloring by drips over surface. Allow to cool only until you are able to handle it.

Pull it as in any mint/taffy method - stretch it apart and meet up ends and stretch again and again. The purpose of this is to get a lot of air into it to make the mints light and not like taffy or hard candy! When you just can't work it anymore because it is getting so hard, stretch it until the strand is only about 3/4" wide. Take some kitchen scizzors and snip into little mints as fast as possible (the candy gets hard fast at this stage). Allow to dry separate for several hours before packaging. The mints soften from the hard stage to a melting butter mint.