Peppermint Bark

Use good quality chocolate for best results. The coconut oil helps chocolate set with a nice snap. Crush candy canes in a bag with a rolling pin. Add candy immediately while chocolate is wet so it adheres. Store in cool place - white chocolate can bloom if it gets warm. Don't refrigerate long-term or chocolate may become dull.

Peppermint bark as a commercial American holiday confection became widespread in the late 1990s, with Williams-Sonoma widely credited as the retailer that popularized it beginning with their catalog offerings in 1998. The preparation — dark or white chocolate layered with crushed peppermint candy — draws on a much older pairing between chocolate and mint that traces to Victorian-era confectionery. Peppermint creams (fondant candy flavored with peppermint oil, sometimes dipped in chocolate) were popular in Britain and America throughout the 19th century and are documented in American candy-making guides from the 1890s. Peppermint (Mentha × piperita) is itself a hybrid plant — a natural cross between watermint and spearmint — first cultivated commercially in England around 1750. Peppermint oil became a commercial product from English distilleries in the late 18th century and was used in confectionery, medicines, and spirits by the early 19th century. York Peppermint Patties (introduced 1940) and After Eight thin mints (introduced in the UK in 1962) established the chocolate-peppermint combination as a standard American and British candy-bar format. The bark format — chocolate poured flat, decorated, and broken into irregular shards — is a specific style derived from French tablet chocolate making that became fashionable in American artisan chocolate-making and home confectionery from the 1990s onward.