Confession. I have a unique hobby. I love to visit my favorite cooking/baking websites and shop. I fill my cart with all kinds of gadgets and fun baking supplies. It’s therapeutic for me. What’s so strange about that you may ask? Well, I almost never buy the items in my cart. In the end, as I sit there chewing on my lower lip trying to decide if I should buy all those lovely items… it sometimes seems too expensive or I wonder if I will ever use whatever it is that I have whimsically selected for my cart. My husband gets the biggest kick out of this part of my personality. But.. where I might not feel comfortable going to a physical store and browsing for hours without shelling out a dime, I can wander to my hearts content on an online store.
Recently I had crushed peppermint in my virtual cart. In fact it found it’s way there on several “trips” to my online hangouts. It looks delicious and fun…and a bit expensive. As I was putting away the last remnants of Christmas I ran across 2 lonely looking candy canes. I thought of my often filled and abandoned cart. I thought about putting those 2 candy canes to good use. They would be great mixed with cookie dough, sprinkled on ice cream, mixed with hot chocolate or adorning a cupcake. I put them front and center on the counter so that I would not forget to crush them. A little later I went back to crush those canes into submission and my husband had left me a love note:
To crush your leftover candy canes, locate a clean jar, a plastic bag that seals, a piece of parchment and a mallet of some sort. Fold a piece of parchment in half and slip it inside the bag. This will become a double layer so that the bag doesn’t split open when you are taking out your aggression on the candy! Unwrap your candy canes and break them into a about 3 inch pieces. Place them in the middle of the folded parchment and place them in the freezer for about half an hour. This helps the candy become especially brittle.
Now we get to crush the candy. There’s no need to get super ambitious here. Just work a little at a time until you have the consistency that you want. I personally don’t love huge chunks of crunchy peppermint candy so I worked until I had the consistency of sand with just a few larger pieces interspersed.
Pretty, pretty, pretty….
Remove it from the parchment and bag and store it in a small jar with a seal. Use it to flavor your hot chocolate or sprinkle it about on your baked goods!
Fun–and now you don’t have to wonder what to do with all those leftover candy canes on your counter! I think I’ll start warming the milk for the hot chocolate, grab my ipad and do a little light shopping.
If you find you are not up to all that hard work–or if you threw away your candy canes just yesterday–one place you can find crushed peppermint is at King Arthur Flour.
- 2-4 large candy canes
- Place a piece of parchment, folded in half, inside a seal-able plastic bag.
- Unwrap candy canes and break into 3 inch pieces.
- Place the candy between the parchment paper and place in the freezer for at least one half hour.
- Remove from the freezer and using a mallet, begin hitting the candy until it is the consistency you desire.
- Place in a small jar with a lid and store for use with cupcakes, hot chocolate, cookies etc.