Stop the Barking

In this month's MS Living, she has an article about nostalgic Christmas goodies. I wanted to make all of them, but started with her Winter Bark - which was so easy and yummy and opened the floodgates of my potential Holiday Bark Extravaganza.

Everyone, you're getting nut bark for Christmas. There. Now you know. Anyhow, I made a couple mini-batches of experimental bark.

A 2 layer peppermint bark* - semi-sweet on bottom and white on top:

And a semi-sweet orange almond bark.** Heavenly!:

The basics are:

• Melt chocolate chips (whatever kind you like) in a double-boiler or slowly in the microwave (zap 10 seconds, stir, repeat).
• Add some extract, zest, nuts...or not.
• Spread on wax or parchment paper in a rimmed baking sheet. If you're doing 2 layers, freeze the bottom layer for a few minutes so that when you add the top layer, it doesn't easily melt and smear.
• Top with nuts, crumble, or whatever. Let 'er cool, and break it up.

* My friend (who is an ay-mazing [gluten-free] cook) has a "famous" peppermint bark recipe here. Not to mention a plethora of other ridiculicious recipes, even if they are gluten-free.

** This was bittersweet chocolate with orange zest and a couple drops of orange extract. Toasted nuts on top. However, next time I will mix the nuts into the chocolate. They kept falling off.