I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving last week! I know I did, especially now that my family has expanded with our newest addition, Liam. It was a lot of fun to be around family and friends having good food, great company, and enjoying Liam being loved by everyone! Phew, I’m still full from all of the food…but never too full to start prepping for Christmas!
Can you believe it’s only 4 weeks away?!?
We actually went to a local Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree, hopefully starting a new tradition. 😀 I even decorated the tree we took our picture in front of.
So cute!
Well, now that we have our little family, it’s about time to slow down and savor the new traditions. In that regard, we’re veering from the traditional baked goods that I would make this holiday season and make new traditions with different flavors…in this instance, peppermint!
As part of McCormick’s ‘Seasonal Seven’, I’m here to share all things peppermint! I’m so blessed to be a part of the Seasonal Seven family this year, which consists of the following flavors at the heart of holiday dishes, both sweet and savory:
- Sage
- Cinnamon
- Poultry Seasoning
- Ginger
- Nutmeg
- Vanilla Extract
- Peppermint Extract – yayayayay!!!!
Peppermint Chocolate Bark
Ingredients
- 12 ounces (about 2 cups) dark chocolate (I use 60% cacoa Ghirardelli)
- 12 ounces white chocolate candy melts (I used these)
- 1 teaspoon peppermint extract, separated
- 2 tablespoons crushed peppermint candies or candy canes
How-To
- Melt the dark chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave on 50% power, stirring every 30 seconds until melted.
- Once melted, gently stir in 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract.
- Spread evenly on a baking sheet covered in wax paper. I spread it to a 12″ x 16″ rectangle.
- Let the chocolate harden in a cool place for a few hours.
- Meanwhile, continue the same process with the white chocolate, melting it and gently stirring in the remaining 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract.
- Spread over the dark chocolate.
- Sprinkle the crushed peppermint candies.
- Let sit out at a cool room temperature for 2 hours until solid.
- Cut or break into pieces.
- Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
I love peppermint bark and make it every year. What a cute family you are!!
Love chocolate and peppermint together! Cute family photo!
you guys look cute together 🙂 peppermint bark is one of my fav. wow cant believe its almost christmas. hope you had a great thanksgiving.
Love that family picture – you guys are too cute! This bark is right up my alley – peppermint is the best holiday flavor!
Such a classic holiday treat!
i love how thin these look…and oh soooo good.
Your bark is so pretty! I love the look of it 🙂 This would be so perfect as a gift for Christmas. I cant believe how close it is either, and I certainly havent started Christmas shopping yet!
I love peppermint bark! Pinning this for later! 🙂 Beautiful pictures.
I love peppermint bark!!
You lucked out with getting peppermint. 🙂
Anyway, I still haven’t made bark! I need to remedy that. And white chocolate is my favorite so peppermint sounds great… if only we had peppermint here! Come on, McCormick. Start exporting to Germany. 😀
Why would it only last for five days?
It’ll probably last longer than that, but just to be safe I don’t want to tell my readers to keep it for a long time and it go bad on them. Just use your best judgement as to how long it keeps and you should be good. Happy Holidays Cindy!
I tried these tonight to take to the office as a test run. They taste amazing but the white chocolate did not spread well. It would not melt- just stayed a bit pasty. I tried anyway and as I spread, it heated up the dark chocolate and I got a very uneven/clumpy swirl. Any suggestions to smooth out the white chocolate? I used ghirardelli- would you suggest switching? Thanks! Can’t wait for them to look as amazing as they taste!!
Hey Kate, I’ve had the same problem with every type of white chocolate. I was getting so frustrated, even with high quality white chocolate. That is, until someone told me about using Wilton’s white candy melts. They work beautifully! You can get them at walmart, local party stores, and online at amazon! I hope you have good luck with the candy melts and the chocolate bark turns out! 😀 Happy Holidays!
I just made this, unfortunately all the white chocolate separated from the dark chocolate. It seemed from the get go, that the white chips didn’t melt as nicely as the dark. Maybe I should have given it more time? Dissapointed, wanted to give this to a few people 🙁
Any recommendations how to avoid it the next time?
I’m sorry that that happened Birgit. I actually had that happen to me too the first time I did it. This last time it did so much better when I cut it when it was all completely at room temperature. From what I can deduce, the trick may be to either let the dark chocolate harden at room temperature for a few hours so that it doesn’t sweat when you put the white chocolate layer on. It’s weird though, I don’t have a problem when I spread milk chocolate over cold dark chocolate. It has to be something to do with the white chocolate. I’ve never been able to melt white chocolate until I used the Wilton candy melts. So weird! Just curious, did you use the candy melts? Again, I’m so sorry that it turned out like that. I need to modify the recipe a little so we can stop this from happening. If you give it another go, let me know! 🙂 Happy Holidays!
No need to apologize 😉 Thanks for replying so quickly. No I didn’t use these candy melts, I used the white Ghirardelli chips. Thinking about making a quick dash to Target to see if they have the candy melts and try again. I also popped the cooling bark for 20 minutes in the fridge (to expedite the process), because I wanted to give some of it to a friend of mine. This might have also not helped? In case I find the melts, I will try again, letting everything cool at room temperature.