I made this a while back but wasn’t going to post it, thinking it was likely something everyone did and y’all might think I was crazy for actually doing a tutorial on it! Yesterday though, I went to my son’s school and sat with his class while the teacher’s had a gathering. I took a bag of this peppermint bark to bribe them with (I am a firm believer in substitute teachers bribing their class) and their reaction caused me to rethink my post. I actually had third graders trying to buy the remainder off of me!
This is another good one to make with your kids because they get to do the fun part : Crushing the candy canes!
You’ll need: White almond bark, candy canes, red paste food coloring, and peppermint oil.
Peppermint oil is sometimes difficult to find. You do not HAVE to have it for this recipe so don’t fret over it if you can’t find it. Likewise with the paste food coloring. Don’t use regular liquid food coloring because that will mess up your chocolate (okay so its fake chocolate but still – just don’t use liquid food coloring). The food coloring I am using is made by Wilton and can be found at any arts and crafts store as well as most Wal Marts – in the craft department. If you can’t find the paste coloring though, just omit that too and you’ll be fine. The candy canes will give it enough color so don’t sweat it.
There are important things to worry about, lets conserve our energy for those. 🙂
Line a baking sheet with waxed paper. I am using two bricks of almond bark and a 13×15 inch pan here.
Unwrap a mess of candy canes. “Mess” is a term referring to a quantity of items which you might not find outside of the southeastern united states. “We had us a whole mess of greens!” “She made a big old mess of cookies for the party!”.
In this case, I would estimate a “mess” to be somewhat equivalent to ten or so…but it is up to you.
Place them in a bag and hand the bag to a kid. Give the kid a blunt object which they are not very likely to kill themselves with. My son’s weapon of choice varies. For this particular exercise, he chose a soup can.
Stop them in between “finely crushed” and “clouds of peppermint powder descending upon the entire house”.
Place one package of almond bark in a microwave safe bowl. Get a spoon or spatula handy. Make sure everything that touches your chocolate is dry, no water droplets on anything at all.
Now you can melt this in a double broiler but that seems an awful lot like work to me so we’re gonna use the microwave. Put this on about 45 seconds and then stir.
Repeat, stirring every forty five seconds, until it is melted and smooth.
Don’t cook for more than 45 seconds at a time. We just want it melted and it can actually burn.
Smooth and creamy!
Now I add just a bit of peppermint oil. Normally you would add anywhere from one to two drops. I just put a few drops in a cap and poured it in. Be very sparing with this stuff because it is extremely strong.
Put a dab or two behind your ears and I bet reindeer come a running!
Now add a bit of food coloring. I held on to all of my kid’s baby spoons and I use them all the time for things like this! There are two ways of doing this, I am going to show you both in this tutorial. You use whichever you prefer.
Stir that up just a wee bit, not too much because you want a swirl here, rather than pink.
Spread into prepared pan (on top of waxed paper)
Have kidders sprinkle crushed candy canes over top.
Now we’re going to melt our second batch of chocolate and pour that over the first layer.
This time I took out a cup of chocolate and dyed it really good on its own.
Then I dolloped it onto the top layer.
and gave it a good swirl with a butter knife.
then let the kidders finish it off by sprinkling the rest of the crushed candy canes over the top and let cool!
Let it cool until hardened and then break into bite sized pieces. Enjoy!
- 2 Packages Almond Bark (white candy coating)
- 1-2 drops peppermint oil (can be omitted)
- 1 box standard sized candy canes
- Place almond bark in large mixing bowl and microwave for 45 seconds, stir. Repeat until completely melted. Add peppermint oil. Pour onto waxed paper lined baking sheet or countertop and spread out until approximately ¼ inch thick. Place candy canes in zipper seal bag and let kids crush them. Sprinkle over top and allow to cool. Break into small pieces and store in airtight container or place in gift bags.
And here is a Merry Christmas from Brady’s third grade class. My two are in the bottom right corner. It was pajama day at school. 🙂
Yum 
Man that looks good! I’d love to try to make it. The kids are wonderful and so dang cute.
I’ve had Rudolph stuck in my head since last Sunday after we had a Neighborhood Christmas in The Park celebration. I was in charge of the hayride and carol time. That hay made me so sick lol. I’ve actually got the chicken and rice casserole going as I type.
Oooh peppermint bark is yummy, but I haven’t made any in years.
In a non food related note your nails or whomever that nail belongs to is lovely. Such a girly comment, I know.
Well, I’m glad you posted this recipe! I’ve wondered how this was made and it will go in my Holiday Recipe Book!
Thank you!
Oh, too cute! A whole classroom of Southern-accent kids! I don’t know why, but I’m just obsessed with accents.
The peppermint bark looks so delicious! I’ve actually never had or made peppermint bark, though I’ve done other types of barks.
Accent? We don’t have accents down here…..y’all have accents. 🙂
Love love love the video!!!! Just tooo cute! Especially love when Katy gives Brady a hug! Merry Christmas to you and your family!!
~Lisa
I already ran to WM and got all the stuff for my daughter to make this for part of her family gifts! Thanks You so much for the simple idea! Oh and I couldn’t find peppermint oil! LOL Oh well.
Those kids are so cute! Now I am in TX and WOW they have strong accents! SO CUTE!!
Am I the only one who noticed how many boys are in that class?
Bless Ms. Alexander!
I love making bark at holiday time as well. I do a milk chocoate layer for the first layer. Let that harden then do a white chocolate layer for the second layer and then top with crushed candy canes and let harden again. Wilton also has the milk chocolate and white chocolate candy melts with peppermint flavoring already in them if you wanted to go that route. I started looking for a recipe how to make bark when I first had a sample of it at a Williams Sonoma store and fell in love with it but they were really proud of theirs at $25.00 per pound. That was definitely not in my budget. I love this site and reading all the recipes posted here and adding a lot to my personal family recipe box. I’m a southern gal too so this site is ideal for me. Thanks for sharing.
I have tried to make this like Williams Sonoma, too, but my layers wouldn’t stick together. What kind of milk chocolate did you use? Chocolate chips or candy bars?
HAHAHAHA–
“…but they were really proud of theirs at $25.00 per pound.”
I saw that, too, and indeed they were! Tasty, but not 25 bucks a pound tasty. Besides, this recipe is way more fun than signing a receipt.
TOO FUNNY TERRI!!!
Great idea thanks for sharing. I had seen it before but have never seen a recipe for it.
I’ve been making peppermint bark for years and I am a complete chocolate snob. I will only use Ghirardelli White Chocolate. Every year I run out of Ghirardelli and substitute with others- then I hear “this wasn’t as good as the first batch”.
Start them out with almond bark and they will never know Ghirardelli goodness 🙂
Wow seeing Brady and his class sing Rudolf the red nose reindeer brought back a lot of memories!…lol
Hi,
I absolutely love this website. I stumbled upon it a few weeks ago and look forward to reading your posts everyday!!
What could one use in place of almond bark as I am deathly allergic to all nuts.
Thanks,
Jackie
oh yeah, BTW I am from Newfoundland, Canada and we use the word “mess” all the time so I can totally relate!! You rock Christy!!
Jackie
I put them in hot cocoa! When we make them we drop them on wax paper like you do your holly jollies and we do not add food coloring or extract. But instead of putting the candy cane in the hot cocoa my son likes to drop 2-3 in a cup. It makes a nice rich drink for him. We do not use milk in the hot cocoa when he does this, just water.
Jackie – the Almond Bark does not have nuts in it. It is just a big slab of choc that melts easy. My son has a peanut allergy and we use it all the time. Most packages are made in a facility with nuts but not on equipment with nuts.
thanks Amy! I will have to check and see if it can be bought in Canada as I have never seen it or maybe because of the word Almond I have not noticed it.
Thanks for sharing all your yummy great kid friendly recipies!! I love your site(big thanks to Laurie Berknier for raving about your site)and have raved about it to lots of my friends and even the grocery clerk. We’re adding pepermint bark to our routine this year. My Grandma use to make this and I havent had it since a child. Excited to get my kids hooked on it and start a new treat to add to our yearly bake off. Merry Christmas and Happy Baking!! =)
I triple love peppermint bark & I even rationed mine out through the holidays so I could have some into the new year. It never dawned on me until last Christmas that peppermint bark could be homemade. Duh me. i just winged it wth cc’s & almond bark (white & dark) although nw i am going to try it this year with the food coloring & paste. i am also going to attempt making some with the different flavored candy canes for something new for the kids. Thanks for the tip!
I hope you enjoy it and have a Merry Christmas!
I’m curious why the liquid food coloring will “mess up” the chocolate? I didn’t have any problem with mine. I made this last week or so, stirred the crushed peppermint into the melted bark, added 1 tsp peppermint extract (much easier to find, and there’s a recipe for peppermint bark on the box, too! LOL) and spread it out in my pan… THEN added a drop here or there of red food coloring (liquid, gasp!) and swirled it. It didn’t seem to mess anything up, but maybe I don’t have a clue. 😉
Oh and those Wilton chips are EXPENSIVE! I saw them in the store and freaked.
I finally got around to making this recipe this year! It was yummy! Almost like a crunchy York peppermint patty! I used a little more peppermint oil (2 drops per layer) and fewer candy canes- 8 to be exact, which I found to be more than enough! Breaking up the candy canes was the most labor intensive part of the process! I also did a layer of chocolate and a layer of vanilla and skipped the dye.
I used to make one similar to this that also used Andes candies in the bark. I can’t for the life of me find that recipe, but this is a good start! Thanks for such great recipes Christy!
Thanks for posting this, Christy. I didn’t know how to do bark so I am glad you put this up! It’s easy but I still didn’t know. I can’t wait to make it!!!
This sounds really yummy. I love peppermint but alas the hubby does not. He can smell it two miles away and turns around. HA!!!
hey can u use food coloring instead of the color paste?
I’m afraid food coloring will cause the chocolate to clot but you can just leave the coloring out altogether and it will still be great!
Just made this and have it cooling on the counter. My daughter and I used milk chocolate almond bark for the first layer and white chocolate bark for the second. We used Hershey’s chocolate/peppermint candy canes crushed up between layers and on top. Can’t wait to taste the end result! Merry Christmas!
Love this! Just made a batch this week – did learn real quick that when Christy says “1/4 inch think” – SHE MEANS IT! Mine was a bit thicker and I had to go at it with a cleaver to break it up. But it is soooooo yummy!
I brought a bag to work the other day (I work at local high school) and one of my students is constantly eating my white chocolate peppermint kisses out of the basket on my desk. She LOVED this bark! It’ll keep her away from my basket for a while!
Think I’m going to try to make a chocolate and white layered version next!
I am so glad to hear that you liked the recipe. Hope you have a Merry Christmas!!!
I AM HEADED TO WALMART TO GET THESE INGREDIENTS AND LOOKING FORWARD TO MAKING IT. THANKS FOR THE RECIPE.
I AGREE THE NAIL LOOKS BEAUTIFUL IN THE PICTURE. HOPE YOUR FAMILY HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS. RUBY
The recipie saved to Ziplist does not include the second layer 🙁