To me, Peppermint Bark is the quintessential Christmas candy. It’s melty chocolate, it’s cool peppermint, it’s a classic candy cane crunch… it’s wonderful, and it’s awfully pretty to boot. But making it myself has never been a tradition of mine – I’ve always just relied on the hope of someone giving me a shiny silver tin of it as a gift. And while that usually works out, no one needs that kind of stress or uncertainty in their life so I decided it was time to go ahead and make my own. It turns out it’s easy (like the kind of easy that makes you shout “I’ve been paying HOW much for this stuff?!”) and every bit as delicious as the kind that comes in a shiny silver, red, and white tin.

Peppermint Bark makes such a great gift. It’s lovely, it’s easy to make a big batch, it’s delicious, and it’s reasonably allergy-friendly. In other words, it appeals to a wide audience, but be forewarned, that includes your own family so don’t leave it sitting out on the counter too long or it might not ever make it out the front door. Luckily, it’s easy to make multiple batches at once, or even whip up a new batch if the first one goes too fast.

You start with dark chocolate. Or milk chocolate, or semi-sweet. It’s really up to you and your sweet tooth. The better quality the chocolate, the better the end result will be, but any brand or bar will work. You chop up your chocolate, put it in a microwave-safe bowl and melt it in thirty-second intervals, stirring until it’s smooth. Once it’s melted, you stir in a dash of peppermint extract (peppermint, NOT mint!) and smooth the chocolate out on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Set that in the fridge to harden, and then chop up a couple of bars of white chocolate. (Can’t find white chocolate in bar form? Chips work fine!) Repeat the same microwave melting process and then spread the white chocolate all over the hardened dark chocolate. (And make sure it’s hard or the two will swirl together. It’ll taste the same but won’t be quite as pretty.)

Then sprinkle the entire surface with crushed bits of candy canes and set it aside to harden. (You can rely on your refrigerator once more here to speed things up.)

Once it has set, you break it apart into a million pretty little pieces and can package it up to gift to all your nearest and dearest. Don’t worry, there’s definitely enough for you to sneak a piece or two.