Peppermint Bark

I’m not ashamed to admit that we still have one of our Christmas trees up. Yes, it might have just been Burns Night but it seems ridiculous that we’re supposed to be satisfied looking forward to and celebrating what is essentially just one week of festivities. We make Christmas last as long as humanly possible in our house because who wouldn’t want to feel snug and secure for a few more weeks? Our freezer is still stocked with Christmas-related foodstuffs; yesterday we made a curry with a turkey leg, today a broth out of the bones. This recipe is a quickie for anyone who has candy canes left over. I’d actually never heard of peppermint bark until someone gave Amy a bar of it as a gift two years ago; it was from America so the chocolate element was pretty naff but given my family’s penchant for chocolate mints it only seemed right to pick up a bottle of peppermint essence whilst out Christmas shopping in anticipation of making my own.

Ingredients:

12 candy canes

2 X 100g bars milk chocolate

2 X 100g bars white chocolate

Peppermint essence

Method:

1)      Prepare a tin by lining it with greaseproof paper.

2)      Unwrap the candy canes and smash them up into small pieces; a mixture of dusty shards and pebbly chunks no larger than the head of a pin. We did this by placing a few canes at a time in a sealed food bag and bashing them with a meat mallet. Amy moved on to the more effective rolling pin method but it came at the cost of the wood; my pastry will never roll the same again..

3)      Carefully melt the milk chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Then in a separate bowl, melt the white chocolate. One can stand quite happily in its bowl as you melt the other.

4)      Once the chocolate has melted, add peppermint essence to each; you don’t want it to taste like toothpaste so add in half-teaspoons until you are happy. We added just over one teaspoon of essence per bowl.

5)      Roughly divide the smashed candy canes into two between the bowls of chocolate, stirring in gently. Keep back a handful of shards to scatter on top.

6)      Pour the milk chocolate into the prepared tin, smoothing flat with the back of a spoon. Then carefully pour over the white chocolate and gently smooth its surface. You can swirl it if you like but the unbroken white layer does look rather special.

7)      Sprinkle over the remaining handful of sparkly candy cane shards and leave in a cool place to set. Snap it into chunks when hard or cut into squares.