A celebrity pastry chef shares her simple trick for turning store-bought treats into 'showstopping' holiday desserts

• Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi told BI she's adding peppermint bark to all of her desserts.
• Peppermint bark features white chocolate, peppermint extract, and crushed candy canes.

Between juggling family feasts and whipping up sweet treats, the holiday season can require a lot of time in the kitchen.

That's why we asked Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi to share some of her favorite baking tips and tricks to get you through December.

Tosi recently sat down with Business Insider to discuss her new Milk Bar Holiday Mix with Ziploc, and she revealed that she's been adding peppermint bark to all of her desserts.

"Barking it up is what we call it at Milk Bar, and right now we're living in peppermint bark land," Tosi said. "It's so simple — white chocolate, peppermint extract, crushed candy canes, and you're done."

"You can take any cookie that you make, or any store-bought snack that you have, and dunk it in white chocolate and put some crushed candy canes on it," she added. "You can bark up anything in your pantry, and immediately you have a showstopping holiday dessert."

Tosi's peppermint bark cake (which she said is Ina Garten's favorite Milk Bar dessert) is also available for delivery nationwide. But if you'd rather make something at home, you can find the recipes for her peppermint bark cups and peppermint bark snaps on the Milk Bar website.

"At Milk Bar, we think the potential with peppermint bark is infinite," Tosi said. "The fact that you can take that idea and run with it is really exciting."

If peppermint isn't your thing but you still want an easy and playful holiday treat, Tosi also recommends her candy bar salad.

"We all know you can get down with a caramel apple," Tosi said. "So the idea is you can put some butterscotch pudding together with freshly-cut apples and your favorite candy bar."

Tosi recommends using Snickers in a candy bar salad, but you can easily adapt the recipe based on your personal preferences. The point is to have fun with it.

"We love to make things funny to keep them real," Tosi said. "Oftentimes, we look for the fancy desserts to wow and impress, when really there's so much residing in our pantry and our imaginations that we take for granted."