Halloween Chocolate Bark


It's no secret that when it comes to baking I'm a bit of a disaster. Even shop bought cake mixes seem to go wrong when I stick them in the oven, and despite my best efforts they're not going to be reserving a place for me on the Great British Bake Off any time soon. So when it comes to DIY food projects the simpler it is the better, and so I was quite excited to discover the joys of 'chocolate bark.' No preheating ovens or whisking various mixtures, simply chuck a load of ingredients into melted chocolate- sometimes the simple ideas really are the best eh? While this didn't turn out quite as 'Halloween Inspired' as I'd liked (I did plan on decorating it with some Halloween shaped chocolates but nothing on the shelves of Tesco quite fitted the bill) I do still like how it turned out. I ended up going with Smarties in Halloween colours, but you could really go to town with decorating this if you can find the right stuff!

 I used:
200g white chocolate
200g milk chocolate
purple, orange and green smarties
casserole dish
cling film

 Step 1: Line a casserole dish or tray with cling film. This is so you're able to pull out the bark once it's set- don't skip this step or you'll have a very hard time removing it once it's done!

Step 2. Melt 150g of milk chocolate (saving the remaining 50g for the 'marbling' on top) and pour it into the casserole dish. If you're adding things like crushed up cookies or marshmallows mix them in with this, I chucked a few smarties in here so they'd be throughout the bark and not just on top. Leave to set for around twenty minutes in the fridge.

Step 3: In separate bowls, melt the white chocolate and the remaining milk chocolate. Pour the white chocolate onto the set layer from the fridge, and then add a few dollops the milk chocolate on top. Then using the end of a wooden spoon swirl around the two colours to give you your marbled appearance.

Step 4: Add the decorations. Anything from edible glitter to cake decorations to different shaped sweets and chocolates. If I was going to make this again I'd have dyed the white chocolate with a few drops of orange food colouring! Leave to set in the fridge for a further twenty minutes.

Step 5: Snap it up and enjoy! As you can probably tell I made mine wayyy too thick, which did result in quite a bit of hacking with a knife to get it into chunks. There was me thinking I wouldn't have enough chocolate for the size of dish I had too, but I'll know for next time.

Whether you're looking to make a cute DIY gift (simply pop it into a lidded glass jar) want a fun addition to a Halloween party buffet or are just in the mood to do a simple Halloween DIY you can't go wrong with this really. With it being a slab of chocolate it's going to taste nice whatever sweets you add to it. I've got mine in the fridge ready for Halloween night, me and my boyfriend are going to eat it while watching a scary film!

What are your plans this Halloween? Will you be doing any DIY projects?