Homemade Chocolate Peppermint Bark

Every Christmas as a kid, my mom would buy peppermint chunks and white chocolate melting wafers to make homemade peppermint bark. As a food-a-holic these days, I naturally wanted to check out the ingredients for the classic melting wafer and was hit with a devastating surprise:

Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Palm Kernel And Palm Oils, Nonfat Dry Milk, Whole Milk Powder, Glyceryl Lacto Esters, Soy Lecithin–An Emulsifier, Artificial Flavor.

Eeek! That’s not chocolate.

Which is why I set off to make some legit white chocolate, and it was actually pretty easy.

Step 1

To make the peppermint bark, first I melted some semi-sweet chocolate chips with a few drops of peppermint oil. You should use organic or Non-GMO chocolate chips if possible OR an organic fair-trade dark chocolate bar. Melt the dark chocolate on low heat, adding the peppermint oil, and taste as you stir it in. Keep adding oil a drop at a time until you think it’s pepperminty enough.

Spread the dark chocolate on parchment paper with a spatula, until it’s around 1/4 inch thick, maybe a little less.

Next, we’re going to make the white chocolate.

White Chocolate

• Parchement paper (buy here)
• 8oz (1 cup) raw organic cocoa butter (buy here)
• 1 cup organic powdered sugar (buy here)
• 1/3 cup organic powdered milk (buy here)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (buy here)
• Peppermint essential oil, to taste (buy here)

Making the chocolate is really easy. First, melt the cocao butter on the stove in a double boiler on medium heat. If you don’t have a double boiler, you can use a metal or glass bowl inside a pan of simmering water.

When the cocoa butter is melted, whisk in the powdered sugar and powdered milk. Next, add the vanilla. Remove from heat and add peppermint oil last. I added one drop at a time and tasted after every 3 drops until it reached the flavor I desired. I don’t have any idea what this translates to in teaspoons, so it’s just “to taste.”

Pour the chocolate melt onto the hardened dark chocolate on the parchment paper and smooth with a wide spatula until it’s 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle with crunched up peppermint candy. Let cool at room temperature for several hours. then break into pieces or cut evenly with a large knife.