Festive Foodie Friday - Chocolate Bark

Okay, I'm going to apologise for actually calling this recipe, I'm not giving you quantities, a precise method or even the exact ingredients, this "recipe" can be tailored to suit anybody, any occasion and to be honest whatever you have in the cupboard.

If your house is anything like mine at the moment, then it's probably full to bursting point with two things, cheese and chocolate! I guess you could add cheese to this but that would probably be slightly weird! This is a great way of taking a bit of that excess chocolate and transforming into something just that little bit different

Chocolate bark or chocolate slabs as they're often known are everywhere at the moment but they can be quite expensive, which is strange considering how easy they are to make. All you need is some chocolate and some toppings of your choice. Here's how I made mine...

First up line a shallow tin or oven tray with some greaseproof paper or parchment.

Then melt your chocolate, you can use what ever kind of chocolate that you like, I'm using milk chocolate with just a touch of white swirled into it. Always be careful not to overheat your chocolate, and just a tip if your melting white chocolate, add just a touch of coconut oil which seems to stop it going lumpy.

The bulk of my slab is going to be made with milk chocolate, so pour your melted chocolate onto the greaseproof, and spread it evenly with a spatula or a palette knife. You needn't be too precarious about the shape, but try not to make it too thin.

I then swirled my white chocolate through the bark, covering it up slightly to create layers when it breaks.

Then go mad and sprinkle your bark with whatever you fancy here I'm using chopped up pieces of vanilla fudge, pecan nuts, toffee popcorn, white chocolate chips, mini vegetarian friendly marshmallows, popping candy and edible glitter!! Press your toppings down gently into the melted chocolate. When you've pimped your chocolate leave it in a cold place for a few to set (sorry for the lighting change but by the time mine had set it was dark!!)

Once it's set break it up into shards, and then you can either serve it and eat it straight away or you can keep it in an airtight tin, in a cool places for a few days depending on your toppings.

You really can make your bark your own, you could keep it healthy and use dark chocolate, dried fruit, nuts and seeds, or you can make it more adult or dinner party friendly, with a mixture of dark and milk chocolate, with dark chocolate coffee beans, or broken up after dinner mints. It goes with out saying that you could make it completely child friendly and cover it with chocolate beans, chocolate buttons, or jellies, or you could even add broken up biscuits and cookies, and it goes without saying that make a festive bark, and use an orange flavoured chocolate or cover a milk or plain chocolate bark in broken up candy canes, or gingerbread biscuit crumbs, or even pretzel sticks or salted peanuts!

Whatever ingredients that you use though, this is a super quick and easy sweet treat, to make as a treat for the family, as an emergency Christmas gift or as an alternative to the mince pies for Santa x
Don't forget to have a look under the recipes tab just under my blog header to see plenty more festive food ideas and sweet treats x