Sweet + Salty Chocolate Bark - A Family Dessert Must

Look, am I proud that we melted chocolate and topped it with sugar and salt? Kinda ya! Desperate times call for desperate measures and truly what makes everyone in this house happy is a little indulgence. You all know we look forward to a weekly movie night. Typically we enjoy popcorn that we sometimes dress up with drizzled chocolate or stash it full of M&M’s. This go around we decided on making our own chocolate bark or chocolate bar. It was extremely fun and something we’ll save for special occasions OR when our days start to bleed together and we miss our friends and family so badly that we can’t really see straight. Then that calls for some insane chocolate! I mean we do see some of our family, but not really friends and we don’t go out in public really. Life right now is weird and frustrating … You get it! We all are going through it. With that said, make some chocolate bark and customize it to fit your family’s tastebuds! It will ease all our troubles.

Sweet + Salty Chocolate Bark

What You Need; Two cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips *Tip, you’ll want to use semi-sweet chocolate here or even dark chocolate since you’ll be topping it with more sweet things. If you go with milk chocolate it might end up being too sweet. Though if you do go with milk or white chocolate then try having your toppings stick to nuts and/or dried fruit. Things that aren’t too sweet. For your toppings of choice you’ll need about 1/4 cup of each. You’ll also need parchment paper and a baking sheet

What You Do

-Start by melting your chocolate chips. I like to do this on a double boiler, which is placing a heat safe bowl (with your chocolate chips inside) on top of a sauce pan simmering with water. The steam from the simmering water will slowly melt your chocolate with out burning it in the process. You can also melt chocolate in a heat safe bowl placed in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring in between each time. The key is to melt your chocolate slowly so you don’t burn it!

-Prep a baking sheet with parchment paper. Gather all your toppings!

-Pour your melted chocolate on to the parchment paper and use a spatula to spread it out evenly into a very thin layer. Be sure to make the layer even, give the baking sheet a few taps on the counter to rid any air bubbles and flatten it all out a bit.

-Now, start sprinkling on your toppings! *Tip, be sure to start adding your toppings right away while the chocolate is still melted. This way they stick in place! For our toppings we went with salty kettle cooked potato chips (ya you heard me!), toffee bits, honey roasted peanuts, pretzels, and marshmallows! But truly you can go crazy here and add whatever you love or have on hand! Need some more ideas? Try; sprinkles, crushed cookies, peanut butter or nutella drizzle, chopped up candy, dried fruit, nuts, seeds, the possibilities are endless!

-Once you’ve topped your chocolate, let it set in the refrigerator until fully firm. This will take at least an hour or more to ensure the entire bark is hard.

-Now, use your hands to break it apart and enjoy! Store in an air tight container for up to 1 week.