As promised, a follow-up…
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post on peppermint creams, and at the end of it mentioned that we were attempting to make our own mint extract. We did this by filling a tall jar with fresh spearmint leaves and topping it up with vodka.
Here’s what the bottle looked like mid-January of this year:
It was left to brew in the pantry, over which time the spearmint leaves aged and darkened. I strained the extract and was quite surprised by the colour – it looks like dark brown, but is actually a very deep shade of olive green…
The extract is distinctly spearmint rather than peppermint, and a lot less potent than the commercial versions. I had to use quite a bit to get the flavour I was after, which resulted in a softer filling that was a little harder to work. Surprisingly, and happily, the fondant didn’t turn green, and the finished mint creams are delicious!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
They certainly look delicious Celia. You are so clever with your chocolate creations. And what a great idea to make your own mint extract. Mint tea I do, but extract is a novelty. I’m surprised it was weaker than you expected. I wonder if it would have been stronger if mint was cut into bits and more piled in????
Choclette, this was my first attempt, and I was a bit surprised at the colour it went. I’m not sure if I can get the flavour stronger without heating, and I was trying to avoid that. Pete suggested that I should strain the extract and then put in a fresh batch of leaves, which might have worked…
I had a look about making mint extract after your earlier post and to get really strong mint essence you need to go down the distilling route apparently – don’t know if you need a licence for that! :) I wish I could send you a bottle of the summerdown english black mitcham mint – do you think Customs would let it through? It is really extraordinarily good –
Jo, you are so sweet, but please don’t go to the trouble. I think they’re a bit funny about liquids being mailed anyway. I’m sure you’re right – as I said to Choclette above, I was trying to avoid heating the extract – I think doing so might change the essence? When I was making vanilla extract, I found that cold macerating gave it a much cleaner flavour than the ones that had been percolated.
What an extraordinary person you are, just would not think to embark on this but now you have we can all benefit. I have only ever made coffee liqueur but might just give this a try with a Tasmanian mint of course. Have a bottle of cumquats in brandy in the Brisbane pantry I put down ten years ago and forgot them and now the entire contents are jet black, but I will dig them out and see if they or the liqueur is edible now after reading this.
Roz, thank you for the kind words! I’m curious how your cumquats will be after all this time… :)
Am planning to try some spearmint truffles next with the cream, will let you know how I go.
How wonderful! We’ve been using peppermint oil, which is much more potent than extract. But the homemade extract looks lovely!
By the way, we figured out a great way to dip these in chocolate, using your method of rolling into a tube and slicing them. We then put a swipe of tempered chocolate on each slice with a spatula, and when that sets it’s solid enough to stay on the dipping fork.
Cheers, and thanks again!
Brian, that’s a great tip, thank you! I’m not sure how the extract would work commercially – because I had to use more to get the same flavour intensity, the fondant was much runnier and never hardened quite as much in the fridge.
I’ve just tried spearmint truffles – added quite a lot of the extract to my cream as it was boiling for the ganache. Need to go see if it’s set up overnight. Normally I make spearmint truffles by infusing the cream with spearmint leaves and then straining them out, which gives them quite a strong mint flavour – not sure the ganache made with extract will be as strong.
Having said all that, I think the mint extract will have lots of uses – choc mint icecream comes immediately to mind! :)
[…] chocolate, so she started working on mint creams, using the recipe we modified from our blog-friend Fig Jam and Lime Cordial in Australia. She made the mint cream (we use peppermint oil, which is a stick of dynamite compared […]
Hi. I’m Pam Miller, Brian’s Mom. I so enjoyed making your recipe for the mints. It was fun to see and work in Kakao Chocolate. Quality control was vital to this process. and, being a great fan of mint AND chocolate, I had to test some. Very good stuff, indeed.