Christmas Cookies

Cookies. Need I say more? I spent the whole day with my kooky sister, Sharri, and Natalie, a ninth grade girlie who can keep you entertained for hours on end, baking cookies and making peppermint bark (my first time). Something about baking is extremely soothing, my stress-reliever of choice during the school period, however, being a perfectionist, trying out new recipes today had the opposite effect. While some recipes turned out delicious, others had to be thrown out. It was an experimenting day, and with every experiment, there are some good and some bad, but, thankfully, there was more good today. We successfully made classic chocolate chip, peppermint chocolate, and peppermint bark. Checkerboard cookies will have to be made next time with a few changes to the recipe, today was not a success. Maybe checkerboard was a bust, but peppermint bark is literally the easiest classic Christmas treat. I included the recipe at the bottom! :) 

I have finally mastered the art of the Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients

12 oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate (morsels or chips)

12 oz White Chocolate (morsels or chips)

1 1/2 cups Crushed Peppermint Candies

Directions

Prepare a cookie sheet lined with a nonstick mat or parchment paper.

Crush the peppermint candies using a food processor, or put the candies in a freezer bag and use a rolling pin to smash it up (release that anger... it's what I did)

Put the Semi-Sweet Chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave it on 30 second intervals until melted. Once melted, pour onto the prepared pan and spread the chocolate using a knife or a spatula until about 1/8th inch thick. Cool inside of the refrigerator for 5 min.

While the Semi-Sweet is cooling in the fridge, repeat the second step using white chocolate. Once melted, take out the semi-sweet from the refrigerator and spread the white on top of the semi-sweet using a knife or spatula until even. 

Before putting it in the fridge to cool, sprinkle all of the peppermint candy pieces evenly onto the chocolate. 

Cool for 30 min.

Once completely hardened, break the pieces by hand. 

The finished masterpiece (excuse the iPhone 4 quality)

-S.Park