For a holiday treat that's almost no fuss,
Santa's Whiskers are an absolute must...
There's nothing like an aweseome holiday treat to impress the neighbors! These white-chocolate-peppermint covered snacks are absolutely delicious and soooo easy to make :-)
Recipe
-one bag (2 cups) white chocolate chips (you could also use almond bark or candy melt)
-10 crushed peppermints
-2 generous cups of Chow Mein or pretzel sticks broken into halves.
Lay down a square of wax paper or non-stick wrap, about the size of a cookie sheet.
Simply melt the chocolate--you could use a double boiler, but I just melted it over low heat which took about 30 seconds (just keep it stirred so it doesn't burn).
While chocolate is melting, crush the 10 peppermints. I found it easiest to smash each one several times with a little hammer (you could use any blunt object if you don't have a hammer handy, be creative :-P), while the peppermint is still IN it's wrapper. You'll get a little dust that comes out, but you'll avoid the bigger mess of peppermint chips flying everywhere. Once they were all decently smashed, I opened (CAREFULLY) each wrapper as I dumped it into the pan of chocolate.
Remove chocolate/peppermint mixture from heat.
Stir in the whiskers. Both options for whiskers taste great, so it really just depends on what you prefer. The pretzels give Santa's beard more of a salty taste, the Chow Mein is slightly less crunchy. No need to split hairs over the issue, make a batch of each!
Plop a small pile of whiskers with a spoon down on the wax paper and spread slightly to flatten.
Yields 8 beards.