EmBARK-ing on Halloween

Trust me when I say that it doesn’t get much easier than this. Chocolate bark is an easy treat or gift to make in big batches with festive colors and (maybe leftover?) candy.

Last year, I found these candy eyes and I bought four packs, which I pretty much insist on using for all of my Halloween recipes. Similar to the cupcakes and Oreo truffles, this candy is super versatile and once you have the first layer of chocolate down, it can be made for any holiday you can find decorations for (and if you shop at CVS, that means…all of them).

Now, for this particular batch I chose to use black and yellow candy melts to weave through the base layer of almond bark (don’t ask me why it’s called almond bark – it tastes like plain white chocolate), but you could also use orange and black candy melts with the white. I just happened to pick up lots of orange Halloween candy and really wanted to make sure it wasn’t too much of one color.

The candy turns out creamy because of the white chocolate then with pops of the different candies you bite into.

A note on candy melts: candy melts can be slightly intimidating. They’re small chocolate wafers that are used for candy making and candy coating (think chocolate-covered strawberries) and are the best way to get color into a dish. When melting the chocolate, start in a microwave-safe bowl first on 30-seconds, then give it a stir, then if it’s not melted, follow with an additional 15-seconds, then stir, repeating until the chocolate is melted. If you do it for any longer or not incrementally at all, the chocolate will seize and turn hard and unworkable (I learned this the hard way when I wasted a whole bag of purple candy melts I was so excited to use).

Ingredients:

1 package white chocolate almond bark, melted
1/4 cup black candy melts, melted (or color of your choice)
1/4 cup yellow candy melts, melted (or color of your choice)
Optional candy of your choice! For this bark, I used Reese’s Pieces, candy corn, Junior Mints (my fave), candy eyeballs, and lots of Halloween-themed sprinkles

Directions:

Lay out all of the candy toppings you’ll use because the chocolate will dry very, very quickly.

Place a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie tray, just to steady everything and have a place for it.

Once the chocolate is all melted, pour the white chocolate onto the parchment paper and with a spatula, spread it towards the four corners, in a rectangle shape, creating a thin layer, which will be the canvas. Then take the black and yellow candy melts and, with a spoon, spoon small dollops around the layer of white chocolate. Take a butter knife and drag it through the black and yellow chocolate to create a swirl affect.

Very quickly, sprinkle your candy toppings over the top and gently press in to so it holds as it hardens.

Once hard (it should take less than five minutes), gently use your hands to break off bite-size pieces of the chocolate.

Yield: The chocolate bark will easily feed 10 people