Butter mints

Buttermints are hard boiled sweets with a butter and mint flavour, sold individually wrapped. The UK retailer Sweets and Candy describes its traditional buttermints as a melt in the mouth boiled sweet combining buttery sweetness and mint.

What is in them

Buttermints, as listed by Sweets and Candy. Sugar, glucose syrup, water, flavourings, and the colours E155, E142, E122 and E100. The retailer lists them as suitable for vegetarians, and warns that they may contain nuts, milk, soya and gluten.

Butter mints without butter

Despite the name, the recipe lists no butter, milk or cream. The buttery taste, like the mint, comes from flavourings: see how are sweets flavoured?

The colours are all added: brown HT (E155), green S (E142), carmoisine (E122) and curcumin (E100), the yellow of turmeric.

Not the same as soft butter mints

There are also soft mints, such as dinner mints and butter mints: soft sweets, often with a higher butter content, that dissolve more readily in the mouth. The buttermint here is a hard boiled sweet, made by boiling sugar and glucose syrup until almost no water is left: see how are boiled sweets made? For a plain peppermint boiled sweet, see mint imperials

The colour warning

Carmoisine, E122, also called azorubine, is one of the six synthetic colours that must carry the warning may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children: see the Southampton six colours

Safety

Buttermints are hard sweets, and the NHS says not to give young children hard foods such as boiled sweets, because of the risk of choking: see hard sweets and young children

In our pick and mix

We do not sell buttermints, but we do sell Mint Imperials. Each card opens up to show the full ingredients and allergens for the sweets we actually stock.

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