Cream Cheese Candy

These no-bake cream cheese mints are one of the easiest holiday candies you can make. Cream cheese gets mashed with mint flavoring and powdered sugar, kneaded into a smooth dough, rolled into marble-sized balls, and coated in granulated sugar. No cooking, no thermometer, no special equipment.

The cream cheese gives these a soft, melt-on-your-tongue texture that’s completely different from hard peppermint candies. They’re more like a butter mint with a tangier, richer flavor from the cheese. The powdered sugar does all the structural work, turning the cream cheese into a pliable dough that holds whatever shape you give it.

Shape them into little candy canes for Christmas, press them into decorative molds, or just leave them as simple sugar-rolled balls.

Kitchen Tips

• Use room-temperature cream cheese. Cold cream cheese won’t mash smoothly and you’ll get lumps in the dough.
• Add the powdered sugar gradually while kneading. Too much at once makes the dough crumbly. Too little and it stays sticky.
• If the dough gets too soft to shape, chill it for 10 minutes and try again.
• Store in the refrigerator between layers of wax paper. These soften quickly at room temperature.