Monday, April 25, 2011

Easter Bark


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!

22 comments:

  1. The bark looks great!
    It rained here all weekend (and it still going strong!)...can't wait for some sunshine :)

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  2. Oh this looks so good.... I'm trying not to eat chocolate but it's just too hard. Very creative using Easter candies! Enjoy your gardening - deer eats everything so it's like a dessert in my backyard. :-(

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  3. My favorite is dark chocolate with hazelnuts.Yours looks great! I am glad it was a slow day on Sunday. Who wants to get really tired on a Sunday, anyway ? :)

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  4. ilove love all those seeds and nuts you added to your bark; fabulous! really looks tasty good. As long as it has dark chocolate I'm happy.
    Rita

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  5. Look so colourful, my kids love Reese's but we don't have Reese's egg selling here!

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  6. Dark chocolate barks looks awesome. I love them with almonds.

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  7. All that chocolatey, crunchy goodness! YUM!!!

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  8. Your "bark" looks and sounds delicious. I'll have to make this as I love homemade candy. I hope you got to enjoy at least the evening on Easter Sunday. I also hope you have a wonderful day today. Blessings...Mary

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  9. Putting candy in more candy? Genius.

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  10. Mmm, what a delightful treat for Easter.

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  11. Dangerous! This looks really good!

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  12. I totally agree re: the omission of the jelly beans. I mean yeah, you want it to be pretty and spring-like and all, but if you're gonna be silly about it, let's just add crushed plastic eggs and some of that easter grass and get it over with.

    Good call on the nuts and seeds too!

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  13. This is such a good idea to use Easter candy!

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  14. This is looking awesome!!! Lovely addition of all nuts and seeds.

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  15. That bark looks so very awesome and will make anyone to drool..

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  16. reese's are most certainly my favorite easter treat, so I wholly approve of this bark! Looks delicious!

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  17. What a great use of leftover Easter (or Halloween...) candy. This would be great with some shredded coconut as well. Yum!

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  18. I love bark! MY grandmother makes a bark out of saltines, lots of butter & sugar melted together, and chocolate chips. I also used to buy a bark in Ireland that had white & dark chocolate, craisins, and salted pistachios. YUM.

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  19. Everything awesome about Easter wrapped into one bark?? I'll take two! ;)

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  20. Okay, for a practicing pastry chef slash photographer, you might be jaw dropped to hear, I never had bark before?

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  21. I love the colors! It looks so festive. I can't believe I've never made bark before.

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  22. Ooh, you know what would be yummy and festive? If you added Jordan almonds. The pastel colors would go great with the theme.

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