Chocolate Bark

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year! I had a lovely time the past 2 weeks with family & friends and found it quite hard to return to work. But all good things come to an end and I look forward to making more memories in the new year. As part of the holidays, I made quite a few goodies this year - chocolate bark (recipe below), honey roasted almonds, sugar cookies (recipe coming soon), carrot cake, Fruit (plum) cake, chocolate fudge - some were packaged as gifts and the rest were happily consumed, much to the dismay of my weighing scale....

This chocolate bark recipe makes for a great gift idea and it could very well be made with milk chocolate or white chocolate or even a combination. Since i like dark chocolate, i stuck to semi-sweet chocolate. This comes together in no times and the toppings can be modified to our own liking... The only (slightly) tricky part would be melting chocolate - make sure that the bowl has no water because chocolate and water don't really get along well and you will end up with a mess instead of smoothly melted chocolate.

CHOCOLATE BARK


Ingredients:
Semi sweet chocolate (or any kind of chocolate you like) - 12 oz [I used chocolate chips but you could just use chopped up pieces of any good chocolate you have]
Craisins (dried cranberries) - 1/3 cup
Roasted almonds/walnuts - 1/3 cup chopped
Dried Apricots - 4 to 5, cut into small bits
Sprinkles - my daughter's addition to this bark

Method:
1) Spread a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. No need to grease.

2) Using a double boiler method, where a bowl of chocolate is placed on top of a saucepan of simmering water (see picture), melt the chocolate until smooth, stirring occassionally.

3) Once melted fully, pour onto the parchment paper and spread out to desired thickness... usually these are quite thin.

4) Immediately sprinkle the toppings uniformly on the top and press down very gently with a spatula.

5) Allow to cool ( no need to refrigerate), and cut into pieces or break them up with your hand if you want a rough, rustic look. These are now ready to be packaged and served.