So it is getting to be really cold here and that puts me in the mood for some yummy treats. And that right there is a fib, I don't need cold weather to have treats but it sure does make for a good excuse to eat and make them. Don't you think? Well anyway I made some really simple chocolates and I promptly brought them to work. Can you believe I didn't eat even one? Well such is life when you have too many good things to eat all at once. This was a nice quick treat it took all of 10 minutes to make and I got to let Pork Chop beat up some helpless candy. All in all you cannot beat that.
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| These little candy canes were a real pain to unwrap. |
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| Pork Chop had a good time crushing them, he was all "die you candy cane scum!" And I am not even joking, that is what he was saying. |
So to make this you need three things, chocolate, candy canes and a chocolate mold. You don't even need the mold if you plan to do a traditional bark, where you just spread the chocolate out on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. But since I have a million chocolate molds and I hate to break up chocolate bark and have it all different sizes and stuff, I did it my way. The only thing I would do differently would be to buy either the pre crushed candy canes or buy the larger ones. The tiny ones I was using were a real pain to unwrap. But other than that it was super easy.
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| There were a few larger bits left, which was okay as I was too lazy to to anything about it really. |
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| I tried a few molds, but the plastic one was not the best for two layers, as the first one set and I tried to pipe the second layer on and tap the mold the chocolates would pop out. So silicon is best for this. |
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| That right there is just a big blob of chocolate and candy. |
So to start you want to crush up your candy canes and set them aside. I really don't have amounts for you as I was just doing a bit. But you want enough candy cane in your chocolate so that you can see it and taste it. Once you have your candy cane ready you melt your chocolate. I like to have the white chocolate on the top of my candy, so that is what you start with. Melt your chocolate and mix in some of the candy cane. I didn't add too much but it made the chocolate nice and thick. I put it in a disposable piping bag and snipped off the end. Then I put a thin layer in my molds. I made sure to tap the mold to settle the chocolate and make sure there were no bubbles. I put them all on a cookie sheet and put the whole thing into the freezer. Since it was small molds and a thin layer it didn't take long for it to set.
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| It gets sort of lumpy but that is no problem. |
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| All ready to pipe. |
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| see how tidy I was this time? I know I am surprised too. |
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| And the second layer. |
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| This mold was very thin so I just did the white candy and it was perfect. |
While the first layer is freezing you want to melt your second chocolate. I have seen where the bark only has the mint in the first layer but I wanted to use up all the candy I had crushed, so I mixed it into the second layer of chocolate too. I did exactly t he same thing that I did with the first layer, making sure to tap the mold well as I went because the cold chocolate would make the new chocolate set really fast. So that was it. I let it set and when it was hard I just popped out the candy and felt happy that they were so cute. I put them in a container and left them in the fridge as our house gets hot with the heater on. And that was it, I took them to work and they were a hit. Which is nice because sometimes the easiest things are the best.
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| These are nice and thin. |
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| These ones just look weird, they were from the plastic mold. |
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| I am in love with these little ones, the mold was small but deep just perfect! |
And with that done, now we have the results of my give away. I had a total of 28 entries, and so I just used random.org and let it do it's thing. And the winning number from all the entries was 6 , which is Betsy (pharmgirl) So thanks all for entering. Betsy I will try to email you and then we can get this out to you. If I for some reason cannot get a hold of Betsy in the next 48 hours we will have to move onto another winner.
