A Reason to Lick the Spoon

Christmas time brings lots of opportunities to give gifts. A few years ago, I started making Peppermint Bark for friends and family. It’s not much, but I love the idea that it is homemade and tastes yummy.

Last year, with the change in my diet (more on that here), I couldn’t eat any chocolate for Christmas. It’s one way to not gain any weight during the holidays! So when I made the Peppermint Bark for everyone, I wanted to make some for myself too. With chocolate out of the question, I decided to use butterscotch in place of chocolate for the bark. It became a hit!

I wanted to share how to make it, but I accidently over heated the butterscotch last night and had to resort to Chocolate Peppermint Bark. Oops! Basically, anywhere chocolate is used substitute butterscotch to get delicious Butterscotch Peppermint Bark.

The recipe I used is from the Joy of Baking. To get two times the goodies, I double the recipe as shown below.

What you will need:

One 12 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate (Nestle was all I had on hand, but I recommend Ghiradelli.)
One 12 oz package white chocolate (I used Ghiradelli.)
2/3 cup crushed candy canes
4 teaspoons vegetable oil (not recommended if making Butterscotch Peppermint Bark)
9″x13″ Baking dish lined with aluminum foil
double boiler (I just use a small pot placed inside a larger pot with hot water.)

First, pour two teaspoons of vegetable oil and the package of semi-sweet chocolate into the small pot. The vegetable oil adds a little shine to the chocolate. Then, place the small pot in the double boiler once the water gets hot, not boiling. Let it sit for a minute or two and begin stirring once the pieces become a little shiny. You can see pieces starting to melt along the edges. I like to continue stirring once the pieces start to melt to keep from burning the sugar in the chocolate.

Stir until melted…

…then pour into the baking dish.

After all the chocolate is poured, tilt the dish from side to side. This helps to get rid of all the ripples in the chocolate. Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Next comes one of my favorite parts… licking the spoon! You gotta make sure the chocolate is going to taste good. Right?

While the chocolate is setting, crush the candy canes. The easiest and cleanest way I have found to do this is to take a wrapped candy cane and lightly pound it a few times with a hammer on your cutting board.

Then break the plastic open and pour crushed candy canes into a measuring cup. I have found it usually takes around seven candy canes to get 2/3 of a cup. You don’t want to mash it until it becomes powder… just small pieces.

Clean the pot and (licked) spoon and prepare to melt the white chocolate. When the chocolate lacks about 10 minutes in the refrigerator start heating the water again.

Pour two teaspoons vegetable oil and white chocolate into small pot and place in double boiler. Stir until melted.

Once melted pour on top of chocolate layer. Then tilt dish back and forth to spread white chocolate.

You can see where a little of the chocolate was starting to mix with the white chocolate… that’s ok. Once it is covered with the peppermint, nobody will ever know. It’s also ok if all the chocolate doesn’t smooth out. Those imperfections will be covered up.

After the white chocolate is evened out, sprinkle the candy cane pieces on top. I like to use my fingertips and lightly press on some of the bigger pieces. This will give them a little bit of chocolate to grab onto so they won’t fall off.

Place the dish back in the refrigerator for another 30 minutes. After all the chocolate is cooled remove from dish and break into pieces and enjoy!

Note: This is not a picture of my Peppermint Bark. The batch I made last night was for Michael Luke to take to work today. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to break them for him before he left for work this morning. But it basically looks like the bark in the picture.

Do you have any candy you make to give as gifts?

FYI: I am not sure if I will have a new post at the beginning of next week. I will be attempting to update and make back-ups of the website to prevent any future problems. Considering my lack of computer skills this could take a while. If everything works out well, I plan to have another post by the end of next week. Until then I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

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One thought on “A Reason to Lick the Spoon”

martha goolsby 01/03/2012 at 10:05 pm

Love reading your blog. Baby Noah is a beauty. God bless you all. Just an idea – keep up with all these recipes you are using and posting. You can make a cookbook for Noah when she gets grown. Love, Martha

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Color Transformed Family

Inspired by color. Transformed by God. Beautiful family.

One thought on “A Reason to Lick the Spoon”

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