Halloween Bark - packed with superfoods for a tasty & healthy treat | thecookandhim.com

Posted in Recipes on 25.10.2017

Spooky Halloween Bark

prep: 20 mins / cook: 0 mins / inactive: 0 mins / total: 20 mins / quantity: 10 portions (approximately!) Print recipe?

The hardest part of making this is exercising some restraint with what I decide to chuck on top of the melted chocolate. My eyes even glanced over the kitchen sink at one point. There are SO many variations of Halloween bark and making bark in general but I wanted to make one that at least had some healthy kitchen sink type things thrown into it!

Start with the melted chocolate. If you don’t have a microwave you can use a bain-marie to melt the chocolate. A bain-marie is simply a heatproof bowl over a barely simmering saucepan of water. I use pre-boiled water in the saucepan and only put the saucepan over heat if the chocolate doesn’t melt completely from the boiled water. What you want to try and avoid is any water or steam from reaching the chocolate as this will cause it to ‘bloom’ (little white spots on set chocolate). It can also harden and become unusable. I hope I’m not making it sound too difficult because it’s really not. Just if you need to put the bain-marie back on the hob, keep half an eye on it and if steam starts to come out of the saucepan take it back off the heat.

Melted white chocolate for Halloween Bark | thecookandhim.com

Doesn’t the sight of melted chocolate just make you go a little bit gooey yourself? Nope, just me? ?

I had a disproportionate amount of fun drawing scary/googly faces on the Halloween ‘pumpkins’. AKA mandarins and a Sharpie pen. Once your ooey gooey chocolate is all melted just pour into a prepared tin and get your sprinkling fingers ready. I’ve used a combination of chia seeds, whole blanched almonds, goji berries, spirulina and dark chocolate chips. Do they look like eyes? That’s what I was going for. Spooky eyes. Not just chocolate drops stuck on almonds.

They definitely scared Ms Meg. See, terrified dog right there …

Ms Meg guarding the Halloween Bark - packed with superfoods for a tasty & healthy treat | thecookandhim.com

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Spooky Halloween Bark

prep: 20 mins / cook: 0 mins / inactive: 0 mins / total: 20 mins / quantity: 10 portions (approximately!)

Ingredients

200g white chocolate
handful whole blanched almonds
handful dark chocolate chips
handful organic goji berries
1-2 tsp organic chia seeds
1 tsp spirulina powder
orange food colouring paste

Instructions

Break the chocolate into chunks and melt either in the microwave or over a bain marie (this just means putting the chocolate in a heat proof dish then sitting that dish over a saucepan of barely simmering water)
While that's melting (stir occasionally) line a 9 x 9 tin or dish with some parchment so that it covers the bottom and comes up the sides
When the chocolate has melted put a couple of teaspoons each into 2 small dishes. Pour the remaining into your prepared tin
Add the whole blanched almonds - I put 2 together randomly across the top of the chocolate then stuck the dark chocolate chips on top to look like eyes, using a tiny bit of the white chocolate to adhere them
Sprinkle over the goji berries and chia seeds
To one of the small dishes of melted chocolate add the spirulina powder to make a vibrant green. Spoon this into a small piping bag (or a small plastic sandwich bag), snip the end off and pipe swirls all over the top of the white chocolate
Do exactly the same with the remaining small dish of white chocolate, adding the orange food colouring instead of spirulina
Put the whole tray in the fridge for 10-15 minutes until set
To create shards, lift the paper out of the tin and using a large sharp knife carefully cut diagonally across
Can be stored in or out of the fridge

Notes

If you don't know how to make those tiny little piping bags that are great for drizzling thin lines of small amounts of chocolate I'd thought I'd make a video. Fancy a video? It'd be my first ever video so I'd be all nervous and stuff!
If you want something a little more savoury before your sweet indulgence try this Toxic Slime Mac & Cheese