White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

First, I want to apologize for the lack of pictures. I've been asked a few times this holiday-prep season for the recipe for my White Chocolate Peppermint Bark, but I haven't made any myself yet. So, the few pictures I have from last year will have to do until I get around to making some in 2015 (which will be soon anyway).

Ingredients:

12oz meltable white chocolate

5-7 real peppermint candy canes (I buy mine from a local candy shop)

5oz meltable dark chocolate (optional)

1. Line a 9x13 baking pan with foil or wax paper. You can use a smaller pan if you want thicker pieces (like the ones pictures above).
2. Unwrap all the candy canes and place into an air-tight plastic bag. I usually use a gallon-size ziplock storage bag. 
3. Use a mallet to break up all of the candy canes into pieces, everything from pea-size to sand.
4. Melt the white chocolate. I tend to use a double boiler, if you're comfortable using the microwave, that's fine, too.
5. Mix in the broken up candy canes to the melted white chocolate until just mixed. Don't mix it too much because the candy canes will start to melt.
6. Quickly pour the mixture into the prepared baking pan and then place the baking pan into the refrigerator.
7. After a couple of hours, take the pan out of the fridge and pick up the wax paper or foil so that all of the bark comes out of the pan. Starting at a corner, break the bark up into pieces and store in mason jars or air-tight bags. I tend to store these in the fridge until it's time to bring to a party or give as a gift.
8. If you want to coat them in dark chocolate like the picture above: After you break up the bark into small pieces, melt the dark chocolate (again, I prefer double boiler). Prepare a cooling rack with wax paper or parchment paper. Dip each piece of bark halfway into the dark chocolate and place on the drying rack. Once you've dipped all of the pieces, put the rack into the fridge for another hour or so. Then store in mason jars or air-tight bags.

When I dipped the white chocolate last year, I also dipped a whole bunch of pretzels for gifts, too. If that's what you want to do, I suggest using more than a few ounces (as you can see above). You can also make this same recipe using dark chocolate.

Last year, I gave a whole bunch of mason jar gifts to my family. My dad enjoyed the dark chocolate peppermint bark so much, that I made him some in the middle of spring using left over candy canes!