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Chocolate Bark


When I was trying to work out some frugal activities to do with the kids these school holidays, I remembered how I used to love making my own chocolate as gifts. So what better way to spend a lovely day with the kids and save money than to make our own chocolate bark.

Yes chocolate is not exactly healthy but it is unavoidable at this time of year unless you go to the moon for your Easter break. I just wanted a way of giving a high quality gift rather than mountains of grainy, cheap Easter egg chocolate.
We had 12 people to give Easter gifts to and we gave ourselves a $40 budget. That works out at a cost of $3.33 each. However, the benefits of the savings pale in comparison to how much people value and thoughtfully hand-made gift. Not to mention how much my kids loved the making process.


The thing with making chocolate bark is that it is so easy it really doesn’t require a recipe but I’ll make one up anyway just to make me look smart.

INGREDIENTS
Dark, milk or white chocolate
Nuts, dried fruit or honeycomb – chopped
Salt or chilli or anything else you’d like to experiment with

METHOD
Place your broken-up chocolate in a pyrex bowl on top of a low simmering saucepan. Make sure the water is not touching the bottom of the bowl and that there is not too much steam being released, turn heat down if you must. Water and chocolate don’t mix, so always make sure there is no water getting into your chocolate.

Melt the chocolate until it is almost all melted then take off the heat. Keep stirring until the chocolate has completely melted. Add a couple of handfuls of your nuts, dried fruit or whatever it is you’ve decided to add, and mix. Spread mixture out on baking paper in a large flat baking tray and then spread more of your mix over the top. Give the tray a couple of taps on the bench so the ingredients sink into the chocolate a little.

Put in the fridge to set. When set break apart into bark. Enjoy!
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