Peppermint, Pretzel, Pistachio Chocolate Bark

December is for desserts - amiright?  Next month, we can ease up on the sweets, but this month, let's eat delicious, easy to make and super festive holiday treats.  This weekend is my 8th annual chocolate christmas party, and I will be serving lots of treats that are familiar to my followers such as twocarolines.com famous chocolate granola pie, the mind altering chocolate derby pie I shared here, and peanut butter buckeye brownies just to name a few.  I needed to add some peppermint to my chocolate party line up and this recipe for peppermint pretzel and pistachio chocolate bark was the ideal dessert because it's make ahead, chocolate minty, salty sweet AND super insanely easy.

This isn't your ordinary Chocolate Bark.  I added the pistachio because I think it gives it beautiful color and super great added flavor - you can omit if you don't love pistachios, and I might forgive you for it.  I love christmas foods, I'm into gingerbread, and cranberries, and plates full of sweets of all kinds, but at the end of the day, I am such a chocolate mint kid, and for some reason, everything about Christmas time makes me want to put crushed candy canes on ALL of my bakes!

All I want right now is chocolate mint, I bought myself a box of Andes mints, and some hershey's candy cane kisses and of course I have the dark chocolate dipped peppermint joe joe's on lock right now.  If you have have mad love for all things chocolate and mint check out how easy this Chocolate Bark is to throw together.

Peppermint, Pretzel and Pistachio Chocolate Bark

Ingredients:

• 1 pound dark chocolate chopped (the OG recipe used half bittersweet and half semisweet - you can use chocolate chips, but there are stabilizers in chocolate chips that sometimes make them not set up as well - but use whatever you have and like the taste of)
• 40-50 small salted pretzels
• 1/2 cup chopped pistachios
• 6 ounces white chocolate (I didn't have any white chocolate bars so I used white chocolate chips)
• 3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
• 2-3 candy canes crushed

Directions:

• Line a regular cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Draw a 9x10 rectangle on your parchment with a pencil and place it pencil side down on your cookie sheet.  Get all your ingredients ready - when making candy you can't chop or crush as you go.
• Melt 3/4 of your chopped chocolate either in a double boiler or in a heatproof bowl in the microwave on defrost, or in 30 second increments.  Do not heat in a microwave more than 30 seconds at a time or you will scorch your chocolate.  Note that your chocolate will sometimes looks like it's holding it's shape but if you take a whisk to it, it all melts into itself.  Mine was melted after 6 minutes with my microwave on defrost.  Once it's melted add the rest of the chocolate and let it all melt together.
• Spread your chocolate out on the parchment trying to keep to your rectangle, but don't stress about that.  Place the pretzels into the chocolate in neat rows then sprinkle with chopped pistachios.
• In the same way you melted the dark chocolate, melt your white chocolate (it will melt faster because there's so much less) and add the peppermint.  Combine well, put it into a bag and cut a small hole in the corner so you can drizzle it across your bark (I used a parchment bag and my "drizzle" got a little too heavy).  Now sprinkle your crushed candy cane on top of everything while it's still not set.
• Let it rest a good 2-3 hours then you can break it apart of cut it up - which is what I did so I could get somewhat even pieces.  Tastes great for at least a week!

Recipe adapted from Kitchen Konfidence Salted Pretzel Peppermint Bark