Chocolate Peppermint Bark

I love chocolate, and homemade chocolate recipes are so fun to make.  I recall the first time I heard about peppermint "bark", and wondering about how odd that sounded.  Its really a very fun and tasty treat, but especially nice to give as gifts to friends, neighbors and family around the holidays or any time. 

If you make these and wrap them up in pretty cellophane or put them in a tin it makes such a nice surprise for the receiver!  Why not try your hand at making this recipe or a version of it, and enjoy the chocolate and peppermint flavors.   The combination of peppermint from the candy canes and the extract with the chocolate is just great. 

Ingredients:

12 ounces of chocolate chips, or equivalent (You can use dark chocolate, milk chocolate or semi sweet)

12 ounces of white chocolate chips

1/2 teaspoon of Peppermint extract

24 candy canes, or the equivalent of peppermint candies (I use the red and white traditional peppermint ones, but you can use others if you have those. The peppermint is what makes this treat so good!)

Crush the peppermint candy into small pieces, though not to fine. I like to put them into a zippered plastic bag to do this, but you can use anything similar.

Spread out some waxed paper over a large sized cookie sheet.

Melt just the darker chocolate chips first, and spread this out over the waxed paper. Allow to cool in the refrigerator. Many like to use a double broiler for the best melting of your chocolate.

Now melt your white chocolate and make sure to add in the peppermint extract and most but not all of the peppermint pieces. Spread this mixture over the other cooled chocolate mixture.

Sprinkle with the remaining peppermint pieces. Refrigerate this for 30 minutes or so or until firm. Break the chocolate peppermint bark candy into pieces and store in such a way as to keep it fresh until you are ready to share it or eat it.

*One tip I learned is that you don't want to pack or store anything with peppermint in it alongside of non peppermint treats. The reason is that the peppermint gets absorbed into the neighboring cookies/treats. So give it its own wrapping if sending with other goodies. Enjoy this beautiful candy!