HEY!! LET'S MAKE MORE CANDY...........

YES.....THESE ARE GOING TO THE VET'S OFFICE TOMORROW.....YOU GOTTA TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE THAT TAKE CARE OF THE BOO.....

Today was the final day of my candy making........on today's schedule was peppermint bark, with both white and dark chocolate...a la' Williams Sonoma....and my famous coconut haystacks.....actually they are only famous among the family members....They are both super simple to make and it takes very little of your time. I spent a about an hour and a half between making it, cooling and packaging it.....

Peppermint Bark.....black and white.

Take 2 boxes of candy canes, break them up inside a zip-lock bag then crush using a heavy rolling pin....

I used on bag of white chocolate disks by Wilton.....you can find this at Michael's....

1 bag of Nestle's dark chocolate chips...

put a sheet of parchment paper on a large cookie sheet.

Start with the white chocolate, melt half of the bag in a small bowl in the microwave for 2 minutes....At the 1 min. 30 sec. point take out, stir to start it melting then continue for the other 30 seconds....stir again, it should be very liquid. It you over heat the chocolate it will start to harden and get clumpy....

Stir in about 1/4 of the crushed peppermint into the chocolate and quickly spread it onto the parchment paper in a thin layer........Add about another 1/4 of the peppermint onto the top......Let cool and harden, this happens pretty quickly.....When it's set up, carefully peel it away from the parchment paper and turn it over....Heat half of the dark chocolate the same way until melted.....Spread on top of the underside of the bark..The dark chocolate takes alot longer to harden so you can either put it in the fridge or the freezer at this point.....When it's hardened break it up into rather large pieces.......Repeat with the remaining ingrediants.

Coconut Haystacks.......

These are even easier but does have one tricky step.....

I used a large Hershey's bar 7 oz. size. ....you can also use the milk chocolate disks found at Michael's..again 1 bag.

and 7 oz. bag of Bakers coconut.....I actually used half of a 14 oz. bag, so I'll assume that their small bag is 7oz......

Here's the tricky part.....Heat your oven to 300 degrees.....spread the coconut onto a cookie sheet....and toast until slightly browned....It will start to brown on the edges first so keep an eye on it and use a spatula to turn it in to the center.....It will smoke a bit and you think onions make your eye's tear....what until you get a gander at what toasting coconut will do to you...Just keep checking every few minutes and when it's half toasted and half not take it out of the oven and let it cool.....

Melt half the bag of chocolate in the microwave for 2 minutes, stir at the halfway point. Stir again when you take it out.....Stir in half of the coconut....You want just as much coconut as chocolate. You don't want the coconut swimming in the chocolate, you want all the flakes coated. Don't be stingy........using small candy cups, or small cupcake papers, spoon a heaping teaspoon full of the chocolate into the cups and pop in the fridge until hardened......These taste the best at room temperature....repeat with the remaining ingrediants...