Better than Williams Sonoma Peppermint Bark

Like all rational humans, I view Williams-Sonoma with a blend of longing and hatred. I have a college degree and I work hard and dammit I WANT ME SOME OF THAT STUFF RICH PEOPLE EAT! I can't afford the Mauviel copper pots, hand hammered by French artisans with their pewter lid handles in the shape of tiny sculpted squashes and acorns--my not-as-good copper pots came from countless hours combing through twelve different Marshalls stores and digging through broken candlesticks and snowflake shaped spatulas until I found each of my 60% off pots one at a time. It took me a year. But Rich People Food--I mean, I know how to work a search engine. There's stuff on the Inter-web-thingy, like, lists of instructions, or recipes, if you will, for how to make things. I COULD HAVE THAT FOOD (If I make it my damn self).

In fact, Williams-Sonoma dares me to make that food. 

Their Christmas catalogue is one of the coolest and most envy and rage inspiring 29 pages of quasi-literature known to man. And among the ridiculously expensive gadgets (Mauviel copper fondue pot, $770--really? People still fondue? Is this a wife swapping party? What are you even talking about with your 1962 cocktail party madness?!?) is the cornerstone of the Williams-Sonoma Christmas economy--peppermint bark. A Williams-Sonoma store may sell only one $1500 reclaimed barn wood chicken coop with artisan hammered copper roofing to a crazy aristocratic chicken lady in heels but there are enough middle-class poseurs who'll buy that damn peppermint bark to keep the little artisan elves who live in the back of Martha Stewart's elf shed in reclaimed barn wood and artisan copper to hammer for the rest of the fiscal year. And not only does Williams-Sonoma know that the Suburban sheep will buy it, they know we'll try to make it ourselves and they scoff--yes, SCOFF!--at our attempts. "Our nostalgic peppermint bark is often copied but never matched in flavor." Really, WS? 

Oh, WE CAN GO. 

Alright. First of all, peppermint bark has three ingredients--dark chocolate, white chocolate, and candy canes. So you can just get a cheap pounds of dark chocolate, a pound of white chocolate, and a box of candy canes for a few bucks and make your own peppermint bark for way cheaper than Williams-Sonoma (mini-win). I mean...you *could*.  Sure, Hershey's and Nestle chocolate chips are a thing, totally.  Hershey's and Nestle are okay if you want to put them into the middle of some cookie dough but people we are not hiding our chocolate in brown sugar dough as something crunchy to kind of notice and go oh, hey, chocolate, what's up? If you use the cheap chocolate THEY WIN. "Often copied but never matched in flavor"? We have to make peppermint bark that at least matches in flavor. AT LEAST. Really, what we're going for here is the utter destruction and humiliation of the Williams-Sonoma franchise. We want that candy to slink away in shame like the cheap tarted-up tin-bait it is. 

Okay fine. YES. You could use Guittard. You can buy it in most supermarkets like Von's, Sprouts, and Wild Oats; and import stores like Cost Plus carry it, especially in December. It's not that expensive and for the price per pound, you can make more than twice as much as you get in the Williams-Sonoma tin. And it is exactly what Williams-Sonoma uses; charging you $30/lb to give us what they bill as a heavenly confection and it's the same chocolate you can buy in the grocery store. It's not even the BEST chocolate you can buy in the grocery store. They just don't think we're smart enough to notice. DO YOU SEE THE EVIL?! 

We must destroy them. 

The Fellowship of the Ring doesn't just grab like, some random skinny guy and give him a bow and say hey, follow this quasi-annoying short barefooted guy from Wilfred around until you see a volcano, don't die. They got ORLANDO BLOOM to shoot a bow while he's running up a chain to the top of a monstro-elephant head and shoot that giant monster in the face and still have effortlessly
straight glowing blond hair. If we want to make the One Candy to Rule Us All we need the Orlando
Bloom of chocolate and that, my friends, is Callebaut and Valrhona. 

Callebaut and Valrhona are the chocolate of choice for professional chocolatiers. It's not what the Rich Folk feed us poor slobs, it's what they feed themselves. Sparingly. Callebaut white chocolate is so soft, so perfectly buttery delicious, it melts into your hands. It has flavor and that flavor, my friends, is not flavorless wax lard and lies, as we've been told all our lives when we were unfortunate enough to be the kid who for the white chocolate Easter bunny just to have variety between you and your siblings. Callebaut white chocolate is a tiny bit nutty and buttery and smooth as the cabana boy you wish was rubbing cocoa butter on your back at your vacation home in St. Barths. (That's a thing. I think.) The Callebaut dark chocolate is the perfect PERFECT balance of bitter and delicately sweet chocolate with a smell that when you melt it will almost certainly bring someone to your door asking for sex. A dab of this stuff between your boobs will let you rule the free world. I feel certain it's how Jennifer Lopez gets people to let her make movies. 

Have I convinced you? Buy some real chocolate. They sell it at Whole Foods and yes that is an intimidating store but just walk in, get your chocolate and get out before you get bogged down in organic truffle oil and sustainably farmed hemp candles.

Okay so, let's cook. You need:

1 lb dark chocolate (60% cacao, bittersweet)

1 lb white chocolate (it's the white one. You'll see.)

4 candy canes (yay! Cheap at Target!)

Peppermint extract (also Target!)

Vanilla extract (you have some! It's free!)

Parchment paper (Target)

A gallon plastic Ziploc bag

A hammer (calm down.)

A spatula

A pan (jelly roll or a cookie sheet)

A knife

A pot

A double boiler (basically a Nother Pot)

1. Start the double boiler doing its thing. You can use a bowl set over a pot of boiling water as well. The basic idea is not to let the chocolate touch the bottom of a hot pot. Cut up the dark chocolate into chunks or shavings and throw it in the top part of the double boiler to melt. Stir in 1/2 tsp peppermint extract. Yeah. You heard me. We're not just making a chocolate layer cake like a bunch of noobs here. I said put the peppermint right IN. THE. CHOCOLATE.

2. Lay out a piece of parchment paper into the pan. The chocolate is thick (yay! You bought Callebaut so it's not separating and leaving oily crap all over the place!) so it won't run. Pour out dark chocolate and spread over the surface of the pan until it's as thick as desired. I like about 1/4" so it has a nice bite to it.

3. Clean the cutting board, knife, spatula and double boiler and dry completely before repeating the process with white chocolate. Any water getting in the chocolate will absolutely ruin it so be careful. Cut it up, melt it down, boom. Add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/4 tsp peppermint extract. Yeah. Vanilla. Often copied but never matched in flavor my ass. Pour it out on top of the dark chocolate and carefully spread it so that the two flavors don't mix.

4. Unwrap four candy canes and put in Ziploc gallon bag (use the gallon bags because they're thick and better able to withstand the beating you're about to throw down). Take the hammer and beat those candy canes like they're the thin red and white walls separating us from the World of Rich People Food. Because that, my friend is what you're doing. Beat down those walls.

5. Sprinkle crushed candy canes over the white chocolate layer and let cool. When it's hardened, which will take a few hours, pick up by the parchment paper and pan will be as clean as if you had a sous chef coming along behind you to clean up. You don't do dishes. Break up the candy into whatever sized pieces you want and either eat it or give it away to your friends like a baller.

6. Practice your smug face. Smiling gives you wrinkles.