My one giftee this year loves minty chocolate, and that kind of candy I can pull off without shopping flurry. It’s easy enough that I’ll hardly explain the process (and I’m also itching to jump back into bed and steam-roll over his loafy sleeping body so I can open my presents which includes a DURIAN, merry merry, merry Christmas!).
- Melt chocolate. Microwave is okay. 100-150 grams or so. Add mint extract, lots.
- Chop up a handful of little chocolate-filled peppermint shelled candies. Watch out for jumpers and shrapnel, though!
- Melt said candy-things in the same microwave, but watch it carefully lest the sugar re-harden. What happens is the lovely additives and fake choco-taste filling they use in those candies melts into the simpler minty sugar outside and makes a kind of chewy and pliable dough – but only when it’s warm, mind.
- Find a bar-shaped plastic container to make your candy in. Spread half the melted chocolate in the bottom, then form strips with the mint-candy dough and lay them down. Top with the rest of the chocolate (jiggle and shake and smash the container on the counter to flatten), and top with things you like to see on chocolate-fields. I went with cocoa nibs and silver baubles ’cause I had ‘em, but like, crumbled oreo tops would be wicked probably.
- Throw it in the freezer, for not very much time, then pop out the hardened bar and chop into pieces. Crack!
- Wrap all nicely and leave under the tree for the mint lover in your life.
Easypants. Big effect, though.
