xmas chocolate candy bars

• chop the dried and candied fruits (if large) into 1 cm x 1 cm pieces and mix with honey (or syrup) and vanilla extract and set aside
• break up or chop the nuts and set aside
• break up ¾ of the cookies into smaller pieces and crush the remaining ¼ and set aside
• grind and/or grate and/or crush the spices, mix together and set aside
• in a double-boiler or bain-marie, melt the chocolate with the butter (both cut into smaller pieces) until melted and smooth
• add the ground spices, dried fruits, nuts, candied fruit and cookies to the melted chocolate and mix with a wooden spoon until everything is well-coated and let cool 5-10 minutes
• place your mini rectangular-shapesd or mini cubed-shaped silicone mold on a rigid baking tray and spoon in the warm mixture until level, tap on a hard surface several times and/or poke with a skewer (to get rid of air bubbles) and smooth out

note : I used a standard 17,5 cm x 30 cm silicone mold with 12 cavities measuring 8 cm x 3 cm x 3 cm each, if you decide to use a 17,5 x 30 cm standard mini-cube silicone mold of 15 cavities measuring 3,5 cm x 3,5 cm x 3,5 cm each, then reduce the recipe by 20% or 1/5th ...

• sprinkle the tops with the crushed cookies and press them slightly down using parchment paper
• let sit at room temperature for 1 hour then place inside your freezer for several hours until rock-hard so you can easily unmold them
• if you wish to individually wrap them, cut out 12 small pieces of waxed or baking paper and aluminum foil (mine each measured 15cm x 12cm)
• unmold the very cold chocolate candy bars, sprinkle with some icing sugar and quickly wrap in waxed paper first then in aluminum foil and slip into cellophane wrappers (if you have some) and reserve in the freezer (but let them sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving) or store in the refrigerator a few hours before serving.