Peppermint Bark: A Holiday Treat with Bite.

I love peppermint bark.

I look forward to eating it every Christmas. I am not sure why I haven’t ever tried making it myself before now, especially knowing just how much I love it. Maybe I thought it wouldn’t hold up against all the other barks I’ve eaten over the years, and my baking ego would henceforth be crushed. Whatever the reason, I decided it was a dumb one, and I went ahead and made it this year.

A whole pan of peppermint.

I greased an 8×8 pan, and then covered it with wax paper. I melted up some semi-sweet milk chocolate, crushed a bunch of candy canes, and then topped it with melted white chocolate (and more crushed candy canes). Then I let it refrigerate until it set. Next, I broke it up into random-sized pieces, and served.

bark with bite.

It was as delicious as any bark I’ve had before it. The problem now is that I have so much of it. Resistance is futile.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (mini) cupcakes.

Over the weekend, I participated in two Holiday craft fairs. The first one was the Traveling Wares which is a very cool series of “traveling” craft shows with a handful of very talented and artistic vendors, held at bars around Philadelphia, and of which I’ve been participating for probably about 8 years now. The second was the Punk Rock Flea Market, which is also very cool in a more “giant warehouse full of punks and funky junk” kinda way. Although both shows were very different, one thing remains the same: everyone loves cupcakes.  And apparently, everyone loves mini cupcakes even more.

 

minis all boxed up and ready to be devoured.

 

At show number one, someone saw me with the unopened box, and asked to buy the whole thing. At show number 2, I couldn’t even finish setting up my table before people were asking how much for the mini cupcakes. Now, I don’t know if it was the size, or the flavor (they were white chocolate mint), but something about these miniature cups of cake really caught everyone’s attention, whether they were a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, 
a poet, a pawn or a…punk.

 

i'm dreaming of a white chocolate christmas...

This was the fastest I’ve ever sold out of baked goods, and probably the most I’ve sold at one of these fairs. Had I known they’d be in such demand, I would have made more. But we learn from experience, and from this particular experience I’ve learned that mini cupcakes sell like hotcakes, and get more “look how cute!” reactions then a puppy. Ok, maybe about the same as a puppy. But you can’t eat a puppy.