Hold your temper(ing): white chocolate pistachio bark

Annalena believes quite strongly that technique in the kitchen is very important. Except when it's not. And it's not always easy to find out when it's not. This is a case where I learned, quite by accident, that a very involved technique, tempering chocolate, is not always necessary. It certainly wasn't, in this recipe.

I am not going to repeat the steps of how to temper chocolate in this blog. You can look that up and if you wish to do it, more power to you. It's an involved process. From what I've read it's important for some applications.

Annalena does not have time for this kind of thing. She's a busy woman. Especially around holiday time, when she's making her holiday goodies. One such goodie is this white chocolate bark, with pistachios and dried cranberries. When I first read the recipe, it called for tempering white chocolate. I put it down. But then I picked it up again, because the explanation of "tempering" was really simple. I COULD DO IT!!! I've since learned that this is not tempering but you know what? Who cares? Let's make some candy.

You need one pound of very good quality white chocolate (which isn't chocolate, but since we're being loose with terminology already, let's stay loose). You will also need a heaping cup and a half of pistachio nuts, salted or not, and half a cup of dried cranberries (I hate the word "craisins," but use that one if you like).

Put some parchment paper down on a baking sheet, and spray the paper with cooking spray. Now put it aside. Let's make the candy. Put the white chocolate into a pot, and put the pot in a larger pot, or pan, with a few inches of water in it. Bring the water to a simmer, and stir the chocolate constantly, watching it slowly melt. Take it off the heat when it's almost completely melted. The residual heat will melt the rest of it. Off the heat, stir in a teaspoon and a half of a neutral vegetable oil (don't use olive oil. Don't even use pistachio oil. Why not? Want an ucky green candy?) Then the nuts and fruit.

Pour this all out on the parchment paper, and very quickly, with a greased spatula, or greased hands, spread out the chocolate mixture as much as you can. It won't fill a full pan, far from it, and precision on the edges is not necessary.

Put the pan aside and let it cool. Now, you may be disappointed when this cools, because it will be very soft. It won't "snap," it will bend. BUT... Annalena has a solution. Put the thing into the fridge for a few hours ,and something nearly miraculous will happen. The chocolate will take on a gloss, it will get nice and firm and now, it will snap, as you'll find out when you break it into uneven pieces.

This will make a little over a pound (since you started with a pound of white chocolate), but you will SWEAR you didn't make enough. I made five recipes of this over the holidays and know what? I'm still making it. Annalena loves white chocolate too, so this is tasted, frequently, on the way to the cookie tin.

Not too hard. Really good. Go ahead and make it. You'll be glad