Happy Monday guys! How was everyone's Easter weekend?
I spent the day at work, but it was real slow (Thank goodness!), so I even got to come home early. It rained practically all weekend, too, so I'm lucky that my garden is still there! I saw many pictures on Facebook of others who had planted flowers and other things, and they were just flooded out! My heart goes out to you guys and your plants!
"Bark" won the poll on Friday, so I was pretty excited to get right into it! I looked up a couple of Easter bark recipes and most of them included Jelly Beans - which I'm not a very big fan of, so I decided to go a different route with this. I told Andy I would be giving him an excuse to buy Easter candy so he picked out a bag (Reese's eggs - of course!) and I picked out a bag (Nestle Crunch eggs). And the rest is history!
Ingredients:
1/2 lb. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 lb. unsweetened or dark chocolate, chopped (I used some gourmet 98.5% - but if you can't take it that high, feel free to scale down to whatever suits you)
1 cup almonds, chopped
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, chopped
1 cup Nestle Crunch Eggs, chopped
White chocolate
Food Coloring
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Slowly melt the semi sweet and unsweetened chocolate in a double boiler over the stove, stirring occasionally. When chocolate is about 3/4 melted, take bowl off of heat and stir to melt the remaining chocolate.
Stir in almonds, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds. Coat the nuts well in the chocolate.
Finally, add the chopped peanut butter eggs and crunch eggs. Mix well.
Spread the mixture onto the parchment paper in an even layer. Place baking sheet in the freezer to let chocolate set, about 10 to 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, melt white chocolate over double boiler (or microwave) until at a "drizzling" consistency. If using more than one color, separate into 2 or 3 bowls. Then add a couple drops of each color to it's relative bowl. Take chocolate out of freezer and drizzle each white chocolate color on top. Place back in freezer to set for about 5 to 10 more minutes.
Peel parchment paper from chocolate and break into bark pieces.
At first, I thought the unsweetened chocolate would be a little too strong, but the semi-sweet chocolate and the Reese's & Crunch eggs really balanced it out. The chocolate had just enough sweetness to it! I even convinced myself that this was pretty healthy because it's loaded with nuts! Wouldn't you have liked to have your Easter basket filled with this?! I know I was glad to!
What's your favorite type of bark? Have a great rest of your Monday guys!
