Skip to main content

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!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Simplest and Best Chicken Broth

INGREDIENTS 1 whole chicken (free range or organic preferred) 2 carrots, chopped 4 celery stalks, chopped 1 zucchini, chopped 1 onion, chopped 4 cloves of garlic, chopped half a bunch of parsley, chopped 1 tbsp Sea Salt or Pink River Salt Pepper Olive oil METHOD Heat oil in a large saucepan and boil a full kettle. Sauté carrots, celery, zucchini, onion and garlic until lightly brown. Add chicken, parsley stalks and salt to the pan and lightly brown. Pour boiling water in the pan. When the saucepan begins to boil turn the heat down low and put lid on. Simmer for 2-3 hours then remove bones from the chicken. The best way to do this is by pulling the whole carcass out and putting in a large bowl. Then use tongs to take meat off the bone. If you want just broth then leave the chicken out and add the rest of your parsley. If you want to make chicken soup, add the chicken back to the broth. If you’re going the soup option you can add more veggies and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rest, Me Time and Self-Care

With Mother’s Day just gone the topic of rest, me time and self-care are an important topic for us all to talk about. As Mother’s we are told how valuable and integral we are to our families. And that is completely true, however I think it has led us to believe that our families are unable to survive without us. Even for a couple of hours. And even though, on an intellectual level, we know that our families can survive without us temporarily, how is the guilt? Anyone not feeling it? Well I’m here to tell you that there is nothing, and I mean nothing that is more important than your health, especially your mental health! Rest, me time and self-care are absolutely essential for a Mum’s mental health.  In nearly 20 years working as a Naturopath there is one word that is perceived as particularly offensive. Rest. When a person (any person) is struggling physically or emotionally, often rest will be one of the prescriptions. If only I could take photos of people’s face...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stress and Anxiety

I recently went through a time of acute anxiety which was confusing and very scary. The reason it was confusing was because I had no real reason to be anxious, however it was there and it was very real. My heart would start to race and I’d become extremely anxious about something quite trivial, to the point of tears at times. After a few days of feeling sorry for myself and struggling on I thankfully had one logical thought “I’m going to try as many things that I know help with stress and anxiety and see how I go”. It literally came down to making a list of things that are proven to reduce stress and anxiety. And because I’m pretty sure I’m not the only who suffers from stress or anxiety I’m going to share that list here. Meditation, Breathing and Mindfulness Whether you refer to it as meditation or mindfulness, focusing on the breath for as little as 10 minutes a day can help calm the body drastically. Meditation, mindfulness and other breathing techniques have been prov...
Post a Comment
Read more