Last-Minute Christmas Treat

In a pinch for a quick last-minute Christmas treat? Here’s one I (think I) invented that you don’t even have to turn on the oven to make. It’s so easy and so tasty, you’ll add it to your list of “baked” goods from here on out every holiday season to bring to parties or to give to all the neighbors. I just made a huge batch and plan to bring these goodies to all of the neighbors.

Ingredients:

Mini pretzel sticks (broken into pieces)

Goldfish brand pretzel fish

M&Ms (either plain, peanut, or pretzel M&Ms)

Peanuts (honey roasted, salted, plain – whatever is your preference. I used a winter mix that had a cinnamon glaze to it)

White chocolate morsels

Directions:

Mix ½ cup each pretzel sticks, Goldfish pretzels, M&Ms and peanuts together in a Ziploc baggie.

Place the dry ingredients onto a cookie sheet that is covered with parchment paper. Make sure the dry ingredients are not bunched together or piled too high, and that it is all in a single layer on your cookie sheet.

Pour one bag of white chocolate morsels into a microwavable bowl and heat for one minute (or less, depending on your microwave). Stir, and then heat again for about 30 seconds. Again, work with your microwave.

When the white chocolate is smooth and melted, pour it all over the dry ingredients to cover evenly. Make sure to cover everything with the white chocolate.

Place cookie sheet into the freezer or refrigerator to cool. In about 15 minutes, the “bark” will have hardened, and you can either break it apart with your hands, or chop it into bite-sized pieces with a knife.

This is the perfect salty-sweet holiday treat to bring to those last-minute parties or to take to neighbors!

And of course, the greatest part about this treat is you can create your own – add whatever you like – raisins, cranberries, Reese’s Pieces, Chinese noodles, pecans, walnuts – you can cover almost anything in white chocolate and it’ll taste amazing!

Note: We tried this with semi-sweet chocolate chips and didn’t have the same success – it didn’t melt as smoothly as the white chocolate.