And now for a recipe that is not economical, healthy, or local.  Nor is it even from scratch.  There are only two ingredients: high quality white chocolate, and almonds.  You want 1 lb of almonds for every 4-5 lbs of chocolate.

Place the almonds in a glass 9×13 cake pan and roast in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, stirring once or twice.  While they are roasting, cut up the block of chocolate into smaller chunks:

Turn off the oven.  Empty the toasted almonds out of the glass cake pan and put the white chocolate in the warm pan.  Place in the oven, and leave it in there for a good 15 minutes.  Stir to incorporate any remaining chunks.  Mix in the almonds, then pour onto either a table covered with wax paper, or cookie sheets covered with wax paper.  Spread to desired thickness.  Let sit a couple hours until set.

I was all out of waxed paper, so I just buttered my cookie sheets.  It worked OK, but not quite as slick as waxed paper.  It left a fine coating of white chocolate on the cookie sheets (we later scraped it off and put the shavings on waffles, so that worked out fine).  Here’s the finished product:

I split a 10 lb block of white chocolate with my mother-in-law, and used 1 lb almonds.  There is a huge difference between white chocolate almond bark that you can get in a regular grocery store and the real stuff from a candy supply store.  A huge difference in price as well:  this project cost me around $25.  But it made quite a bit, and we give these away as gifts.  I promise you, it’s worth the extra time and effort to get the good stuff.