If you are like me and are pretty much stuck for certain people on what to gift for the holidays, then perhaps this home make project is for you: Chocolate bark – homemade!
The variations on what you choose as your topping or flavour combinations are endless. I’d only avoid those sparkly silver balls which promise so much but basically break teeth at will upon eating – we’ve all done this at some point as a child.
Reasons you’ll love doing this.
- Requires only 3 ingredients
- Takes less than 20 mins to make – excluding chilling time in fridge and kid friendly (supervision advised for chocolate melting)
- Can yield 3/4 portions as gifts plus spare for you!
Here is the basic recipe which you can tweak to your liking:
Ingredients
- 8oz of dark or milk chocolate – try for 70% or higher cocoa solids
- 4oz of white chocolate
- 1.5 oz of pistachios, could be any other nuts you have in the house or dried fruits
- You will need a cocktail stick to swirl the chocolate
In a microwaveble bowl heat the dark or milk chocolate in 30 second bursts till completely melted, mixing after each blast till silky smooth. Next, take the white chocolate and turn the power down on the microwave to 50% and repeat. If your chocolate seizes up, like mine did because I forgot to turn down the power simply add in slowly a few bits of butter mixing as you go to bring it back to liquid form. It was at this point that I was convinced I’d done a ‘nailed it” post but thankfully it came back to a smooth runny consistency.
In a large flat tray, line with baking parchment and pour on the melted dark or milk chocolate and spread out evenly with a spatula. Next put on the white chocolate and using a cocktail stick swirl patterns spreading the white chocolate around the tray. Next roughly chop up the pistachios and sprinkle across the entire chocolate bark. Eh voila – that’s it. Put in the fridge to chill till completely set.
Whilst you are waiting you can write out little gift tags and cut some cellophane and ribbon ready to make into individual gifts. Simply break up the bark into pieces and stack inside the cellophane then secure with a ribbon and tag and leave in the fridge till you are ready to gift it.
Hope you have fun making this and do try out some other flavour combinations. Type chocolate bark into Pinterest and you’ll see there are lots of creative ways to make even more of this :-). Oh the simple pleasures.
Merry Christmas!
Remember, adventure is out there.
Nat x
