If we are anything in this house, it is mint lovers. But, this wasn’t always the case for me. I used to pick peanut butter cups over peppermint patties. I used to skip over all of Giada’s recipes that used fresh mint. All of that changed when I found out that Mr. Dessert For Two is a mint fiend. When he told me he loves a good peanut butter and mint jelly sandwich (I’m gagging right along with you), I knew I was going to have to incorporate mint into my cooking for him. The first meal I ever cooked for him was a Giada recipe: I brushed skinless salmon fillets with agave nectar and placed them on the grill. I then set to work on supremeing oranges for a mint and orzo salad with a champagne vinaigrette. Apparently, surpreming citrus fruit on a date is highly impressive, or so I’ve been told. It seems that my baking lately has turned into nothing but ice cream accoutrements: crunchy stir-ins, warm oozing toppings, and small batches of cookies to smash scoops between. These peppermint patties do double duty: a fun thing to make from scratch (and loads better than the store-bought variety), but also delicious chopped and folded into homemade chocolate ice cream. I have one word of caution for this recipe: your patties must be frozen solid before dunking in chocolate. We are essentially dumping sugar into hot chocolate; the potential for melting is high. If this happens to you, save yourself the frustration and dump all of the patties in the chocolate, stir and serve as a warm mint-chocolate sauce for topping ice cream. It happens to the best of us. Next time, be quick with the chocolate dunking: drop the patties in on one side, flip with a fork, then remove immediately to return to the freezer.
