Welcome to another one of my gifts for you this Christmas season. If you are like me, you are being invited to dessert swaps, 'bring a dessert' parties or just looking for something simple and inexpensive but high in quality to give as teacher, coworker, or neighbor gifts. Today I am going to share one of my family's favorite Christmas recipes. I make this a million times during the holidays because it is gone as soon as a batch is done. This recipe came about because while my husband loved the idea of peppermint bark, he doesn't like dark chocolate. So, I gave the old standby a new twist by using milk chocolate. This recipe has 3 ingredients and will be ready to pop in the freezer in 15 minutes. AND you get to work out all of your aggression! What do I mean? Keep reading.
Christie's Quick and Easy 3 Ingredient Milk Chocolate Peppermint Bark
INGREDIENTS:
1 Bag of Ghiradelli Milk Chocolate Chips
2 Bags of Ghiradelli White Chocolate Chips
12 oz bag (or 2 6oz bags) of regular Starlight Peppermints
SUPPLIES:
Standard Size Cookie Sheet
Wax Paper
Ziplock Freezer Bags - 2 quart size or bigger
Cutting Board
Ice Cream Scoop or Mallet
3 Large Size Coffee Cups
LET'S GET STARTED!
Unwrap all of your peppermints and put them into one ziplock freezer bag. Press all of the air out and seal the bag. Place that bag into the other ziplock freezer bag, press all of the air out, and seal it.
Place your sealed bags on a cutting board and whack the living daylights out of it. No joke. Beat that sucker down. When the dust settles (pretty literally, even double bagged it happens), you will have mostly peppermint dust with some small peppermint chunks. If you see anything larger than around 1/4 of the size of the original peppermint, whack it again. Set aside.
Line your cookie sheet with wax paper and get ready - cause the good stuff is coming!
Take your Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips(okay and you may be asking WHY Ghiradelli? I have tried it with Nestle, the Walmart brand, etc and they are never quite as good as it is with the Ghiradelli. Does it have to be Ghiradelli? Well, no, I guess not, but it won't be as good - in my humble opinion that is ;) ), pour the whole bag into one of the large coffee cups (told you they needed to be big.).
This is where your mileage is going to vary and you need to pay attention. Microwave the cup for one minute. Take it out and stir. If you are able to get completely smooth and creamy chocolate, you are done. If not, microwave again for 30 seconds, stir, check. Chocolate can burn easily in the microwave and it is better to take baby steps with heating it. My microwave only takes one minute for the milk chocolate.
Pour the milk chocolate onto the wax paper covered cookie sheet. Using the back of a spoon, smooth it out fairly flat.
Let set for five to ten minutes. If you really want it set, throw it in the refrigerator, clean up all of the peppermint dust, use hot water and rinse out that chocolate cup and then get ready for the next step.
Take one bag of white chocolate chips and pour it into one of the large coffee cups (not the one you just used with the milk chocolate, see it should be clean and in the dishwasher by now.)
Microwave for one minute. White chocolate behaves a little differently than the milk. It will not get as smooth and creamy. If it is completely melted, good. If not, repeat like you did above.
Once it is melted, take your bag of peppermint dust and crumbs and pour about a quarter of it into the coffee cup.
Stir well.
Now, take your milk chocolate layer out of the fridge and glop your white chocolate/peppermint mixture on.
Distribute with the back of a spoon. You will probably not be able to cover your whole milk chocolate layer with the white which is why you are going to repeat this step with the other bag of white chocolate chips and another 1/4 of the bag of peppermint dust. Between the two bags, you should be able to cover the layer of milk chocolate pretty well.
Pour the remaining peppermint dust/crumbs on the top of the white chocolate layer.
Put the tray in the freezer overnight. The next day, place another piece of wax paper on top and bust that sucker up. Make the pieces as big or small as you want. We store them in sandwich ziplock bags in the fridge.
I promise you, they won't last :)
Let me know if you try it!
Come back tomorrow as we start our last week of Christmas sewing on our Handmade School Year project. I can't believe the end of the 2nd 9 weeks is this week. I will have been sewing her outfits every day for HALF of the school year!
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