Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Peppermint Bark

Yay, it's officially December! We must celebrate the season with a festive batch of peppermint bark!

I make more batches of peppermint bark than anything else during the holidays. It's super easy to make and requires very little effort!


It's a huge crowd-pleaser and always the first to be gone at parties. Not to mention, it's a beautiful addition to any dessert table!


Start with peppermint sticks. You'll need 4 jumbo ones or 6-7 regular sized ones.



Break them up and toss them into a zip lock bag. With a wooden rolling pin, crush the peppermint into tiny pieces.


And now for the chocolate! I always have like 10-15 pounds of chocolate sitting around my house at any given time. Not exaggerating. You can use any kind of chocolate you want! Chips or bars, it really doesn't matter. Just be sure to use a high-quality chocolate.


Start by melting 12 oz of your "base chocolate." This can be dark chocolate or milk chocolate, depending on which you like best. I usually make several batches of each to give a good variety. The milk chocolate base bark will be sweeter.


Pour your "base chocolate" onto a parchment paper lined 13 x 9 baking sheet.


Spread the chocolate in to an even layer on your cookie sheet, leaving about 1 inch of space around the perimeter of the pan.


At this point, you can put the sheet of chocolate into the fridge for about 20-30 minutes for the base chocolate to harden, before putting on the top layer. This will make it so that you have two distinct layers and the white chocolate on top will remain purely white. HOWEVER...


...I like to pour on the white chocolate right away, before the dark chocolate has a chance to harden, because:



I like to make beautiful swirls in the white chocolate! Plus, this will make your peppermint candy sprinkles more apparent. A pure layer of white chocolate will hide the effect of your peppermint. It's prettier this way! =) You'll need 12 oz. of white chocolate.


Sprinkle on your peppermint candy.


Chill in the fridge for about an hour.


Break them apart and serve on a pretty platter!


Recently, I found these gorgeous green mint chips! Guittard always makes super high quality chocolate chips- it's the only kind of chocolate I use when making my bark. Everyone loves the flavor! So I was super excited when I saw these mint ones! I think they're new.. or maybe they're seasonal? Either way, they're fantastic!


Instead of smearing it, I put little blobs of the melted green mint chips onto the "base chocolate."



Then I ran a knife through it. First vertically, then horizontally.


Sprinkle with peppermint, and chill for about an hour.


Ta-da! Aren't they festive?! I love the red & green combo! These were super delicious and had a really great mint-y taste! Yum!

Bring these awesome treats to your next holiday party. Your guests will be wowed by both its taste and beauty! =)

And really, you can't ever go wrong with chocolate layered on top of chocolate.


P.S. To all you readers out there who view my posts via Reader or Email, please swing by my site and check out the new layout! Let me know how you like it! Hubby worked really hard on it last night. =)



14 comments:

  1. This sounds wonderful! Very festive and yummy too!

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  2. Layout looks good, just like ALL your recipes!!!

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  3. Awesome swirls! And awesome website too ;-) Its very easy to scroll through and makes me very hungry with all the beautiful photos!

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  4. The layout is very nice. Your hubby is very sweet to have helped. I don't like candycanes much on their own but love the idea of adding them to recipes.

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  5. This looks so beautiully festive - the colours! Bet it tastes truly irresistible.

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  6. Ah yes, a true chocolate fan! :)

    I love your peppermint bark - it bet it's gobbled up very fast. Thanks for letting me know about the mint chips by Guittard - I'll be looking for them!

    :)
    ButterYum

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  7. I love it! I'm always so tempted to go out there and buy it... now i'm glad i can make it!

    Awesome photos, as always!

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  8. These look so yummy! I'm drooling over your photos! I can't wait to make some, too!

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  9. Liked the layout. Simple and organized. Also the peppermint barks look quite exciting.

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  10. The new layout looks great!! I love making bark too and yours is gorgeous. I simply must have those green mint chips. Mind sharing where you found them? I think the only place I've seen Guittard around me is at Whole Foods.

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  11. the colours are so pretty esp the green ones!

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  12. Yum! Nick loves this stuff! I've never tried it with milk chocolate. We use white chocolate and add a little peppermint extract to the melted chocolate. Depends on how much mint you like. The new site looks good! See you guys in a few weeks :-)

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  13. Impressive photos! Love the ideas!

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