almond topped caramel graham cracker bark

Let the Christmas baking begin!  I'm excited to be sharing a few Christmas-y recipes in the next few weeks, and you can always browse through my archives for some more Christmas classics!

We make several different types of bark every year for Christmas, including cranberry almond, peppermint bark, and (my favourite) toffee pretzel bark.  If you do decide to check out some of the other bark recipes I've linked here, please have a good laugh at some of my old photos.  Oh my!  

What I love about bark is that it is so stinkin' easy and so delicious!  Seriously, you just throw a few things together, and bam...you're done!  And it looks like you did way more work than you actually did.  That's called a win win situation folks.

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almond topped caramel graham wafer bark

recipe: slightly adapted from: Jean Pare - Holiday Entertaining

Directions:

1)  Grease a 10x15 inch cookie sheet with graham crackers.  You might need to cut some of them in half or in quarters to fill in the edges.  
*If there are any gaps between the crackers and the edge of the pan, the caramel will run off!

2)  Sprinkle half of your almonds evenly over the crackers, and set aside.

3)  In a medium saucepan, melt together your butter and brown sugar.

4)  Bring mixture to  a boil, and cook for 3 minutes.

5)  Immediately (and gently) pour your caramel mixture over the crackers.  The caramel doesn't have to be quite even over the crackers, as it will magically even out while it bakes in the oven!

6) Sprinkle the rest of your almonds over the caramel.

7)  Bake at 350 degrees for 7 minutes.  Remove and allow to cool.

8)  Carefully heat up each of your chocolates (separately).  I just did them in the microwave and stirred them often as they can burn easily.   

9)  Place each kind of chocolate in a small ziplock bag, cut a very small hole in one corner of each, and drizzle each chocolate over the bark.

10)  Allow the chocolate to set before cutting.  Then serve!

*These freeze well!  So you can pop some in your freezer and pull them out as needed.

Ingredients:

Graham crackers (soda crackers work well too!)

1 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/4 cup white chocolate melting wafers

1/4 cup dark/milk chocolate melting wafers

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Also, please don't judge me on the recipe title.  It was a real struggle.  I really wanted it to be descriptive, and then just ended up describing exactly what it was.... #foodbloggerproblems

Anywho...Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans out there, and Happy Thursday to the rest of the world!

-Kels

Christmas baking: cranberry almond bark

We really really love bark in our house (

as you may remember:

peppermint bark

,

coconut bark

,

toffee pretzel bark

.

).  Maybe because sometimes we're a little bit lazy, and maybe because it just tastes so darn good!

The toasted almonds and dried cranberries are such perfect flavors for winter, and we always make some for Christmas!  But honestly, there is no right or wrong time to make this bark.

p.s. Christmas is in 3 days....say what?

I'd just like to recommend you bringing this bark to the next party, family gathering, dinner, or potluck you go to.  So simple, but it looks so fancy.  Impress your friends, co-workers, boss, or in-laws.  They'll love you for sure!

(I'm so not ashamed to bribe people with food....a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right?)

Cranberry Almond Bark

Ingredients:

1/3 cup slivered almonds (blanched)

1/2 pound milk chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 oz white chocolate

Directions:

1)  Spread your almonds out on a baking sheet, and bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes, or until toasted, and set aside.

2)  Melt milk chocolate in a double boiler.

3)  Remove chocolate from heat, an stir in almonds and dried cranberries.

4)  Pour onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper.  Spread evenly to about 1/4" thickness.

5)  Melt white chocolate in double boiler.

6)  Drizzle white chocolate over milk chocolate before the milk chocolate has set, and use a fork to swirl designs in the white chocolate.

7)  Refrigerate until firm.  Break up into pieces and store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer until ready to serve.

p.s.

 ♥ kelsey

tasty tuesday: coconut bark

My family has recently started using coconut oil, and man is it delicious.  I am not going to lie, sometimes I just eat it... like with a spoon.  

 I don't care if that makes me a weirdo!  It is so smooth and coconutty, totally worth any judgement I may receive.

However, I recently discovered a recipe for coconut bark on

Kasey's Kitchen

, and I knew I had to try it out.  With crunchy coconut and semi-sweet or dark chocolate, it is way better than plain coconut oil!

Coconut Bark

by:

Kasey's Kitchen

Ingredients:

1 cup shredded sweetened coconut

1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1 cup coconut oil

1 cup chocolate chips

A sprinkling of salt

Directions

1. Melt coconut oil. You don't have to completely melt it, but enough so you can easily mix in the coconut and spread it in a pan.

2. Mix in both coconuts. (I like the bark not super sweet, but if you have more of a sweet tooth, feel free to use all sweetened coconut, or all unsweetened if you like. I like the crunch the unsweetened has!

3. Line a 9x13 (or something similar, I didn't quite fill mine up - it just depends how thick you want it) with tin foil. *Check out the neat trick my mom showed me!

4. Press the coconut mixture in the pan. Spread it out evenly, and however thick you want!

5. Let this set in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes.

6. Melt the chocolate, and spread evenly over the cooled mixture.

7. Sprinkle a bit of salt over the top!

8. Pop back in the fridge, and let the chocolate harden.

9. When it has set break or cut into pieces.

*Also, we learned a new and ridiculously easy way to help line a pan with tinfoil!  First, measure out your tinfoil, and then turn your pan upside down, and fold the tinfoil around it.  Then, turn your pan right side up, and place your tinfoil inside!  Your tinfoil will be a teensy bit too big, but it's much easier to handle this way!

I have made this recipe 3 or 4 times in the last couple of weeks. It is a great go to snack when you need just a little something! I have made it in bark form and in puck form, using mini muffin tins. I put them in the freezer for a bit, and then just flipped it upside down and they all popped out! I have experimented with a few different things, using dark chocolate, and drizzling the chocolate instead of spreading (for those who are watching their sugar intake), as well as varying levels of sweetness. All have been great, and everyone in the family likes something a little bit different! I have even left an entire corner chocolate free for my mom!

So have fun with this recipe! It is very forgiving, and I'm sure any changes or additions will work just fine.

Enjoy!

p.s. 

♥

jordyn & 

kelsey 

Christmas Baking: peppermint bark

 Yesterday we made incredibly addicting

toffee pretzel bark

, and today we're here with an even easier recipe for peppermint bark!  Truly, this isn't much of a recipe, but it's too good not to share.

Peppermint Bark

Ingredients:

white chocolate*

candy canes

*you can get fancy with your white chocolate and use Callebaut, or you can go the cheaper route and just use white chocolate melting wafer.

Directions:

1)  First, place your candy canes in a large plastic bag, and use a meat hammer/rolling pin/etc to smash them into small pieces.  You can use a fine strainer to sift off the very fine candy cane dust to save for later (we sprinkle it on top to decorate the bark.

2)  Melt your white chocolate in a large saucepan.

3)  Stir in the candy cane bits, and pour mixture onto a parchment lined baking sheet.  

4)  Sprinkle with the super fine dusty and/or sprinkles.  Allow to cool in the fridge, and then break into chunks and serve.

*In addition to serving this as traditional bark chunks, we also piped some of the chocolate into snowflake molds!  These worked wonderfully, and were a nice change from the norm.

Again, this bark is dangerously addicting!  So make it at your own risk!

p.s. 

 ♥ kelsey and jordyn

tasty tuesday: toffee pretzel bark

I take pictures of food a lot....and thank goodness my family puts up with my craziness.  Today was no different, and even involved balancing the above plate of bark on a table, on top of two chairs.  My excuse? That's where the best light is!  Naturally, I ended up knocking everything onto the floor with a huge crash.  Story of my life.

*Nothing/nobody was permanently damaged during the creation of this blog post.

 Moving on to more important things....you must make this bark asap!  It's such a wonderful combo of sweet and salty, and toffee makes it stand out from the average bark found on Christmas platters everywhere.  Not that I don't love any kind of bark...because I do!  All bark is welcome in my life!

Our family loves to bake, and we go a little nuts at Christmas.  Awesome Christmas platters are one of our signature gifts, and these babies were added to our arsenal of treats this year.  My mom is always trying out new things, and she gets all the credit for discovering this winning recipe!  Jordyn and I are so grateful for her enthusiasm and help when it comes to blogging...so, thanks mom!

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Toffee Pretzel Bark
adapted from: livelovepasta blog
Yield: 1 sheet of bark

Ingredients:

1 cup Butter

1 cup Brown Sugar

mini pretzels (the crossed ones!) - enough to line an 10x15 baking sheet

2 cups of Chocolate Chips (*or 16 oz of Callebaut chocolate)

sea salt, for sprinkling on top

Directions:

1)  First, line an 10x15 baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with Pam.  Then place pretzels on the sheet in a single layer.

2)  Then, melt 1 cup of butter in a small saucepan on low-medium heat, and add in brown sugar.

3)  Stir sugar and butter until incorporated.  *combining these ingredients at a low temperature helps to keep them from separating!

4)  Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer (NOT a boil), and let it cook for about 3 minutes once bubbling; this will allow the butter and sugar to carmelize.

5)  Pour this mixture over your pretzels, and use a spoon/offset spatula to help spread this layer out.

6)  Bake at 400 degrees for 5-7 minutes.  Allow to cool.

7)  Melt your chocolate chips in the microwave (checking and stirring often), or by using a double boiler.  Once melted, pour over the pretzel-caramel layers, and use a spoon/offset spatula to even it out.

8)  Sprinkle with sea salt, and allow the bark to cool in the fridge until completely set.

9)  Once completely cooled and hardened, break the bark into pieces and serve. 

*Store any extras (pfftt...yeah right) in the fridge!

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We found that we didn't quite have enough caramel mixture to quite cover our pretzels....but once you bake it in the oven, it evens out!  So just do your best when pouring and spreading, but don't worry about it too much!

After your caramel-pretzel mixture comes out of the oven, you may notice that some of your pretzels have shifted during the baking!  We just used a fork to poke them back down/into place.

Some of you may have noticed my love for anything to do with salted caramel....and this dessert just feeds my addiction so well.  And there's chocolate too!  Chocolate is always welcome in our house.

The only bad thing I can say about this recipe, is that it gets a little stuck in your teeth.  But hey...that's toffee for you!  And it's definitely worth it in the end. Ha!

In other news, it snowed while we made this!  You can't really tell from the picture below....but I promise it did.  I also realize this is the second time I have expressed excitement of snow this week.  Seriously though, it's a rare thing here in the Fraser Valley!

Anywho, this recipe is really great for beginners in the kitchen.  The hardest part about it is sharing it!

 ♥ kelsey