Chocolate Peppermint Bars Recipe – Christmas Baking

This post was sponsored by McCormick.  Any opinions are 100% my own.  

I love me some Christmas baking!  Don’t you?  You get to make all sorts of treats that you wouldn’t have on any normal day of the week.  You get to share them with your friends and family, all while trying not to eat too many of them.  😉  That’s the hard part!

I was blessed with the opportunity to try one of McCormick’s very own recipes and wow, what a hit this will be in our family.  I think this will be in our recipe box for years to come!    It is absolutely DELICIOUS!  There is the perfect amount of McCormick Peppermint Flavoring as well as the amazing amounts of chocolate.  If you like Peppermint Patties, you’ll want to try this!

 

 

In fact, it’s even better than a Peppermint Patty!  The bottom of it is a fudgy brownie.   Then, you top it with a white peppermint patty  mixture.  After that, you top it with melted chocolate chips mixed with butter.  Sprinkle on some crushed peppermint candies, to make it look amazingly tempting.  It is very rich, so you won’t want to go overboard on eating lots of pieces of this amazing treat at once!  But wow, seriously?!

Chocolate Peppermint Bars Recipe

1 family sized box of brownie mix
2.5 cups of Powdered Sugar
1/2 cup (one stick) plus 7 Tbsp of butter, divided
1.5 Tbsp. heavy cream
1 tsp. McCormick Pure Peppermint Extract
12 oz semi sweet baking chocolate, broken into pieces
Crushed Peppermint Candies (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare brownie mix as directed on package. Spread in greased foil-lined 15x10x1-inch baking pan.
2. Bake 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out almost clean. Cool in pan on wire rack.
3. Meanwhile, beat confectioners’ sugar, 7 tablespoons of the butter, melted, cream and peppermint extract in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended and smooth. Spread evenly over cooled brownie. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
4. Microwave chocolate and remaining 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter in large microwave bowl on HIGH 2 minutes or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Spread over top of chilled brownie. Sprinkle with crushed peppermint candies, if desired. Cut into bars.

Here’s what my steps looked like:

Here’s what we started with!!

We began by preparing the brownie mix.  While it was baking, we got my 2 year old started with breaking up the peppermints.  This boy loves to throw things and hammer things, so this was right up his alley!

 

The brownies are out of the oven, so we let them cool for a while on a wire rack.

 

While it was cooling,we got the peppermint mixture ready, complete with the McCormick Pure Peppermint Extract.

 

Once the brownies were cool enough, we spread the mixture over the top of the brownies.  Then stuck them in the fridge for 30 minutes.

 

While that was in the fridge for 30 minutes, we got the chocolate topping for the top ready.  We put butter and chocolate chips in the microwave.

After they came out and we stirred them up, it looked like this:

 

 

Then, we spread it over the top.  It looked like this….

 

Finally, we sprinkled the top with broken pieces of peppermint.

 

Mmmm, Mmmm, doesn’t that look scrumptious!

 

The next morning, we cut them into bars. Don’t they look pretty?

 

Even if they looked ugly, you can’t beat the taste!  Wowee, you’ll love these things!

 

For more McCormick Christmas recipes, click here.

 

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