I (Kim) love Christmas! The lights. The gifts. Watching children’s eyes light up with wonder. Food. Glorious, wonderful, yummy food. And I love making it! Cakes, pies, turkeys, hams, candy, jellies, jams…I can cook Christmas goodies all day long.
I recently (last week) found out the peppermint bark is one of my mother’s favorite candies. So I decided to learn how to make it.
Since I was using the store bought, meltable candy that is meant to be used for molding candy and covering things (pretzels, cookies, nuts….*sigh*), the process was fairly simply. Someday, I will learn to make this from scratch, starting with the raw ingredients for chocolate. Yesterday was not that day.
Before beginning, I bought a cheap, $1.99 candy mold from Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft store. You can buy really nice, silicon candy molds for $6.99 and up at various places. I may decide to invest in one of these at a later date (day after Christmas sale?) but I did not for this experiment. The mold was intended to put a sandwich cookie in (like an Oreo™) and cover it with chocolate, so you know about what size each candy was. To make a more traditional looking, broken bark, I would use a small cookie sheet covered in wax paper, and then break the candy into pieces once it hardened.
You will need: Candy mold or cookie sheet covered in wax paper.
Meltable vanilla or white chocolate candy
Meltable chocolate candy
Peppermint Young Living Essential Oil (I used about 12 drops)
2 Candy canes, smashed into small pieces
1. Place crushed candy canes in the mold or spread on cookie sheet.
2. Following the instructions on the package, melt the vanilla or white chocolate candy. When melted and smooth, mix in Peppermint EO. I used 12 drops, but I love peppermint. I would recommend staring with 5-6 drops, taste, and add from there. You can always add more if it is not strong enough. Once it has a peppermint flavor you like, pour the melted candy into the molds (about halfway up the mold) or onto the cookie sheet. The candy was a little uneven, so I just taped the mold lightly onto the counter and let the vanilla candy settle in nice and even.
3. Wait until the vanilla is completely hard.
4. Following the instructions on the package, melt the chocolate candy. When melted and smooth, pour the melted candy into the molds until full or onto the cookie sheet. Again, tap the mold onto the counter to settle the chocolate in.
5. When the candy is completely hard, pop out and store.
I found that using one package each of chocolate and vanilla resulted in 30 Oreo™ sized candies. I also found that these candies are VERY rich, and most people can only eat about a half of a candy. Unless it is Kristi’s oldest offspring. I think he could eat all 30 in one sitting and still be asking for more! Next time, I think I will try making them smaller, maybe about the size of a quarter and 4 times as thick. This is Kristi…Oooh, how about a lollipop?
If you’d like to order a Young Living Starter kit and then receive 24% off all your essential oil purchases, click here: YLw/KimR If you’d rather order Young Living essential oils at retail prices, that’s OK too. You can use the same link. Peppermint oil is very inexpensive, but you’ll want a quality oil good enough to consume, and we only trust Young Living.