25 Days of Christmas - Day 1

Because who wants just one day of Christmas, really?
For the next 25 days this blog will hopefully be filled with various Christmas themed... stuff...

For our first day I'm sharing one of my favorite Christmas treats. I love to eat it, but I've never actually made it before. That's okay though because it is so so easy!

Peppermint Bark doesn't really have a recipe, just melt chocolate and add in crushed peppermint. Mine did turn out different from any I've had before though, by way of texture, so maybe there was something else I should have done that I didn't. Oops, haha.

For this batch I used 12 oz. of white chocolate and 12 oz. of milk chocolate. I didn't bother measuring the peppermint, just put in what I thought looked like a good amount. Lots of recipes also use some kind of peppermint oil/extract, but I didn't, because I'm lazy. :)

Alright! The first step is crushing the peppermint.



Put your peppermints or candy canes in a large plastic bag. Candy canes are easier to crush, but they taste the same anyway. Actually, I wonder how the fruity candy canes would taste? Next time.

I used peppermints (and I'm very, very wimpy) so despite instructions that told me I could use a rolling pin, I had to use a hammer to break them up. I would strongly suggest putting a cutting board under your bag so as not to hurt your counter, and a newspaper over the board. When the peppermints start breaking they'll poke holes in the bag and the powder will get everywhere. If you've got newspaper out it'll save you some time cleaning up.

Next melt the chocolate.



Keep the heat low and stir constantly, the chocolate will burn easily. Don't get any water in contact with the chocolate. I'm not exactly sure what happens but apparently it becomes "clumpy and unworkable".

After you have got the chocolate melted, stir in your peppermint. This part smells delicious. :)

Pour the candy into the pan you want it to cool in. I didn't grease mine at all or put any sort of covering on the bottom so the chocolate was a real pain to get out after it had cooled. I would recommend you don't make the same mistake. Spread the candy so that it fills the bottom of the pan all the way to edges. The length/width of your pan will determine how thick your candy is, though it will taste the same no matter what.




Stick the pan in the fridge for about 45 minutes. After time is up bring out the pan and break the candy into pieces. Again, this part will be a lot easier if you have put some kind of covering on the bottom of your pan.



Tell me that does not look delicious! (It made more but by the time I had taken this picture we had already eaten half of it.) I don't particularly care for peppermint, but I love this candy.


Happy December :)