Peppermint Bark

Ok, this is a simple one. Please don’t be frustrated by the lack of exact amounts. Peppermint bark is a relative thing…

Peppermint Bark

Ingredients

Green or Pink melting chocolate–you can buy this in small amounts or 10lb bags.

Candy canes (crushed)

Melt your chocolate on low. Resist the urge to turn up the heat. Just let it melt slowly. You have plenty to do anyway.

Unwrap and crush the candy canes. Here is the best tip on how to do this that you’ll get all year…

For centuries, we have been dreading the “crushing of the candy canes” part of this adventure. We’ve used ziploc bags and rolling pins, bowls and heavy mugs and I believe there was even a year that the back porch and a hammer were involved. I know…yikes.

So, this year we found the perfect thing and our candy cane crushing woes turned to joy and singing. Well, at least the whining stopped. We discovered the food chopper from Pampered Chef. We just unwrapped the candy canes, snapped them in half and dropped them in the chopper. Oh, let me tell you–everyone wanted a turn to pound the daylights out of those things. It was great. No rolling pins, no punctured ziplocs and best of all no hammers.

You’ll want to crush the candy canes and still have some recognizable pieces left. That makes the bark pretty. When your chocolate is melted, pour in the candy canes and stir it up. You can add as much or little as you’d like. Seriously, you can’t do this wrong.

Now pour the chocolate onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and spread it around—not too thick, not too thin. It will set in about an hour–but you can speed it up by putting it in the fridge for a while. Once it is set, remove the wax paper and break it into pieces. Gobble it up.

And there you have it. The long winded approach to a very simple thing.