Peppermint candies are used to garnish peppermint bark.
Peppermint bark is a wonderful holiday treat that is made from peppermint extract, peppermint candy pieces and chocolate. It can be made with white chocolate, milk chocolate and/or dark chocolate. Homemade peppermint bark makes an excellent holiday gift, just keep it chilled. Add this to my Recipe Box.
Melting
Homemade peppermint bark tends to melt if not kept chilled. While commercial peppermint bark can be kept at room temperature, homemade bark needs to be kept refrigerated. Commercial peppermint bark uses tempered chocolate to keep the chocolate shiny and prevent it from melting.
Tempering
Chocolate contains cocoa butter in the form of crystals until the chocolate is melted. Because there are many different kinds of crystals in chocolate, the tempering process causes only the highest-quality crystals to form. Tempered chocolate is darker and shinier than untempered chocolate.
Prevention/Solution
Because tempering can be a complicated and tricky procedure, it is easiest to work around that step when making homemade peppermint bark. Adding a touch of vegetable oil to your melted chocolate will cause the chocolate to have a shiny look when hardened. Vegetable oil will not keep your bark from having to be refrigerated, however.
Tags: peppermint bark, Homemade peppermint bark