White Chocolate and Friends - A Great Mix!

My fabulous friend Alissa came over for a fun night of chatting and baking. We went on a blitz and made four different types of holiday treats! All are simple to make and tasty. We made these to package up for neighbor gifts but they would be perfect to throw together for a cookie exchange party or any holiday gathering you may have at your home.

Theme of the night - white chocolate and peppermint! Yum!

All of the supplies. Candy canes, tons of white chocolate and almond bark, sprinkles, pretzel sticks, Peppermint Jo Jo's and red hots.

I found these adorable aprons at Crate and Barrel.

Let the crushing begin. We used a heavy duty gallon size zip lock bag and tapped on the candy canes with the back of a metal spoon. They crushed very easily. And by using the heavy duty bag you don't have any pieces poking through the plastic.

Fresh crushed peppermint. Pretty and it smells good! Each recipe we were making used peppermint as one of the main ingredients. We needed a lot of peppermint!

I went to six different stores looking for peppermint sticks and couldn't find them anywhere. My husband suggested I cut off the cane part and cover that end in the chocolate and no one would know. Brilliant! (He was probably tired of driving all over town with me looking for peppermint sticks and was desperate for an idea!)

We scored the cane with a knife and then broke the pieces in two with our hands. Once you score the cane, it snaps apart very easily.

First recipe: White chocolate dipped peppermint sticks with white sprinkles. We melted the chocolate in the microwave and it melted so much better than using the double broiler we tried at first. We just dipped the canes in the chocolate and sprinkled with the white dots. I found these sprinkles at Michael's. They were pretty difficult to find.

Perfect hot cocoa stir stick!

Next up was the white chocolate dipped pretzel sticks. We dipped the sticks in melted chocolate and then sprinkled with a variety of different festive sprinkles. We laid them out on wax paper and it was perfect once they cooled to easily peel them off the paper.

Peppermint Jo Jo's Dipped in White Chocolate and Crushed Candy Cane - My favorite recipe of the night. I got these cookies at Trader Joe's. They have them each year and they are delicious right out of the box. But I love to dip half of them in white chocolate and then roll them in crushed candy cane. They are delicious and look adorable packaged up with a red bow. Once I get my goodies packaged I will add more pictures. YUM!

Last but not least - Peppermint bark in the shape of Christmas trees. I used a Christmas tree mold and we poured in the melted chocolate mixed with peppermint. We waited for them to chill and then popped them out of the molds. Perfect little trees.

All of the goodies!

Baking holiday treats is always fun but doing it with a friend makes it that much sweeter!

Happy Baking!