Last minute holiday gifts

Christmas is right around the corner now, and if you’re in a sudden panic realizing that you haven’t gotten all your gifts, never fear: there are a lot of quick, easy, and thoroughly impressive-looking foods you can make as gifts.  I was snowed in on Saturday, and made a stunning amount of food (which I then had to find room in my suitcase to transport).

Our crazy machinations included peppermint bark (see recipe below), and these delicious rosemary-maple glazed nuts from Marisa at Food in Jars.  You could also try chocolate covered orange candy, or truffles (neither are hard, though they’re more time-intensive.

You should also check out Smitten Kitchen’s list of gift-able recipes – warning, do not drool on your keyboard while reading the list.

The ingredients for all these recipes are simple and easy to come by.  I like Trader Joe’s for finding large quantities of nuts and decent-quality chocolate at really good prices.

The trick for this peppermint bark (and for the truffles and candied orange peels, and anything else involving melted chocolate) is a process called tempering.  Tempering means letting chocolate harden at the right temperature and rate.  And it is a little tricky.  You know when chocolate gets old, and it sometimes gets a layer of white stuff across the surface?  That’s called blooming, which means that some of the fat has separated out to the surface.  It’s harmless, it won’t affect the taste, but it’s not so pretty to look at.  If you melt the chocolate down and temper it, no more bloom.  If you melt chocolate and let it harden at the wrong temperature and speed, it will invariably bloom.

This is my current favorite tempering method, courtesy Mark Bittman’s blog, Bitten.

To be honest, tempering is kind of a pain in the ass.  It’s time consuming, requires close attention, and if you spend to long working with it, it’ll get too cool and have to start over.  I find that when it’s properly tempered, it’s already too thick to work with.  Mark Bittman points out that bloomed chocolate can have pretty, swirly patterns, which actually look kind of nice.  So, if you’re feeling a little lazy, or the tempering doesn’t quite work out, just pass it off as an artistic choice.

This recipe is, I suspect, very adaptable.  You could try nuts, other candies, whatever you like in place of the candy canes.

Peppermint Bark

• Several pounds of good quality, semi-sweet chocolate
• About a dozen medium, peppermint-flavored candy canes (or other topping of your choice)

1. Break the candy canes into small pieces.  The best way I found to do this is to start by breaking them by hand, then put the pieces a few at a time into a mortar and pestle.  Instead of grinding them, as you usually do with a mortar and pestle, use the pestle to smash them to bits.  Be careful – pieces may go flying.  Another way to do this might be to put the pieces in a plastic bag, then go at them with a rolling pin or even a hammer.  Take care not to damage your furniture, smash your fingers, or frighten small animals.
2. Line a couple edged cookie sheets with waxed paper.  We used 2 sheet for 2-3 pounds of chocolate.
3. Melt the chocolate carefully in a double boiler (or a bowl, set over a saucepan with a little hot water in the bottom).  Don’t let any moisture get into the chocolate or it won’t harden properly.
4. Temper the chocolate.
5. Pour the chocolate into the prepared pans, smoothing it with a spatula.  Sprinkle the candy canes over it.  You can carefully tamp down the candy cane bits if desired.
6. Let it cool for several hours until completely hardened.  Peel off the wax paper, break the bark into pieces.  No need to make neat and tidy pieces – jagged edges make a nice effect.