Low Sugar Peppermint Creams

Peppermint patties are an iconic sweet treat and I used those as inspiration when creating these little clouds of peppermint. There are several people I know who cannot tolerate the amounts of sugar that are in most desserts. They do enjoy the occasional sweet though and these help to satisfy that sweet tooth. These are excellent on a dessert table and can be modified in many ways to match other flavor palates such as orange or vanilla bean instead of mint.

I looked for sugar-free chocolate chips to try out this recipe but was unable to locate them so I'm not sure how that would taste but it would be even lower in sugar. I used Ghirardelli 60% chocolate chips because those were the darkest I could find without using bittersweet. If necessary the top drizzle of chocolate could also be left off. These are a quick dessert to prepare that will also disappear quickly. :). If you would like to you could also add in a drop of green food coloring to the cream cheese mixture.


Low Sugar Peppermint Creams
Ingredients:
- 4 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
- 1 tablespoon agave nectar
- 1/2 teaspoon mint extract
- pinch salt
- 1/2 cold heavy cream
- about 3-5 ounces of dark chocolate (about 1/4 bag)

Directions:
1. Whip cream cheese until fluffy, then add in agave nectar, mint extract, and salt. Continue whipping until smooth.
2. In a separate bowl whip heavy cream to stiff peaks. Stir in 1/4 cup of the whipped cream into the cheese mixture. Slowly fold in the rest of the cream mixture into the cheese mixture until completely blended. Set aside.
3. Melt chocolate in a double boiler and stir until smooth. Remove from heat and spoon or pipe just enough into mini muffin cups to cover the bottom of the cup. (Reserve some melted chocolate if you would like to drizzle the top of the peppermint creams.) Put cups of chocolate in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes to set up.
4. Spoon or pipe the cream cheese mixture onto the chocolate discs in the cups (alternatively, you could remove the discs from the cups and pipe or spoon the filling on). 

5. Drizzle reserved chocolate onto the cream in cups, if desired. Remove from cups or serve in cups.


Printable recipe