Peppermint trays and heart shaped cut outs from melted mint candies

I’ve been eyeing the beautiful peppermint trays I saw on Pinterest

made by Tutto Bella and decided to give them a try….

Warning… They aren’t as easy as they look.

I think it all comes down to the candy manufacture and the proper oven temp…

but I’m still trying to perfect the process.

 Here’s what I’ve done so far……

 

1 Peppermint tray and a few heart cut outs along with some stuff that ended up in the trash!!.

 

First… I unwrapped the Starlight mints and laid them on pan dusted with cornstarch.

Then I baked them at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes.

Lesson learned….put a thicker layer of corn starch than what I show here….

 The only two salvaged pieces from that batch are the two hearts shown above….

everything else stuck and cracked….

Here’s another batch of heart shaped cutouts. This time I made little holes toward

 the top so I could hang them like ornaments.

 

Below I made a small tray and used a pizza wheel to trim off the edges.

 

I plan to make a bigger tray and use a round pizza pan with sides. 

Here’s what I read works and what I found doesn’t:  I read that parchment paper works really

well and so does a Silpat.

 I tried wax paper, but it stuck and smoked.

I used Brach’s candy and they didn’t work well at all!!

So far I like the candies from Kroger the best.. I plan to try the ones from GFS…

they might be the winner…..

PS. for more tips and advice go to Tutta Bella’s blog.