Are you looking for a Christmas treat that’s perfect for gifting, looks really impressive, but is super easy to make?
You’ve come to the right place, because Christmas Chocolate Bark ticks all those boxes!
Christmas Chocolate Bark is my go-to teacher gift at Christmas. It has all the cachet of being homemade, but requires minimal effort.
It’s also great as a party gift, or simply a yummy festive treat for friends or family.
Please note, these pictures were taken with my phone as I went along. No fancy food blogger lighting or aesthetically pleasing arrangement of ingredients. This is how it really looks.
There are also a few affiliate links in here. If you click & buy I get a tiny amount of money, though it doesn’t cost you anything.
Ingredients
These are really simple. It’s basically two different kinds of chocolate, then your choice of decoration and flavour.
Note: the coconut oil is not for flavour, it’s for the white chocolate. White chocolate is a bitch to melt nicely, and I find the addition of coconut oil loosens it up a little without affecting the flavour.
I like white and really dark chocolate. White chocolate is insanely sweet, so the 85% chocolate makes a nice contrast.
But it’s your choice. You can use milk chocolate if you really must. But if you do, make it good quality. None of that Cadbury crap. Buy real chocolate that doesn’t contain vegetable fat.
I also use double the amount of dark chocolate, so here it’s 400g dark and 200g white.
Candy canes are kind of a no-brainer, because it’s Christmas, right?
You don’t have to, but I like to add glitter too. Seriously, everything looks better with glitter.
I also add peppermint to the white chocolate.
You don’t have to add flavour, but I think it works really well if you’re using candy canes for decoration. Plus it cuts through the sweetness of the white chocolate a tiny bit.
If you’re not using the candy canes, you could try it with orange, which is also pretty festive.
This much chocolate (600g) will require two large-ish baking sheets. You can make it with one but the bark will be pretty thick. Or use half the chocolate, but really, this is easy to make in bulk. And it makes it more likely there will be extra that you can hoard and eat all by yourself.
OK, on to the method.
We’re going to use the standard double boiler method of melting the chocolate. You can do it in the microwave if you like, but I don’t. Double boiler is pretty much guaranteed. You can also use glass or metal bowls, it doesn’t matter.
Put the kettle on.
You need two small pans and two bowls that will sit on top.
Break up the chocolate and put it into the bowls.
Pour a little hot water into each pan and turn the heat on low until the water is barely simmering.
Put the bowls on top of the pans.
DO NOT let the bottom of the bowls touch the water.
Leave them alone while you bash up the candy canes.
Unwrap them, put them in a baggie and close it up, and then gently tap them will a rolling pin or similar.
You don’t want to bash too hard or you will end up with candy sand, which will not look pretty. You want some nice big chunks with stripey bits as well as some smaller pieces.
By the way, I know the baggie is single use plastic, but it’s really the best way.
I initially tried to break them on the cutting board, then quickly realised that tiny sticky chips were flying all over my clothes and the floor. Yuck.
If you try putting them under a kitchen towel, they will stick and get fluffy and gross.
Really, just use a damn bag.
Now line your trays.
I use nonstick baking paper and shallow baking trays.
I’ve also got a top tip for you for using baking paper: before you put it on the baking tray, scrumple it up into a ball and then smooth it out. It will stop that annoying curling.
Check on your chocolate.
The dark chocolate doesn’t have to be completely melted, but as long as it’s halfway there you can turn the heat off and give it a stir. The lumps will melt.
As for the white chocolate, it’s likely it won’t be looking like the dark chocolate. Not smooth and melty and like you want to stick your face in it and drink it.
So add some of your coconut oil and stir it in well.
Again, it won’t have the beautiful satisfying smoothness of the dark chocolate, but it doesn’t matter.
Add your peppermint.
Go easy, stir well, and taste; you can add more if it’s not strong enough.
So your white chocolate is ready (don’t panic if it feels a bit stiff) and now it’s time to put it all together.
Pour out the dark chocolate into the lined trays. I had to use one large and two small because I couldn’t find my other large one.
See how the paper is creased? That’s from my top tip above.
Smooth out the chocolate with a palette knife. You don’t have to use one, but it makes it a bit easier.
The edges don’t have to be neat either. Just spread it out more or less evenly.
Can you see how there are a couple of tiny lumps in the picture above? Those are a couple of pieces I didn’t quite stir in properly. It doesn’t matter. You don’t want massive lumps, but a few little ones will make no difference.
Now for the white chocolate.
Ideally, the white chocolate will be smooth and liquid enough to pour. If this is the case, pour it in lines back and forth across the dark chocolate.
But as you can see, my white chocolate didn’t really want to pour. I was reluctant to add too much coconut oil as I didn’t want a coconut flavour to come through if I used a lot more.
So it’s soft, but it would only sort of dollop.
Anyway, once you have your poured lines or blobs, use the edge of the palette knife to sort of make swirls through the two chocolates.
Be gentle here, you don’t want to actually mix them up, you just want a kind of marbled effect.
And there you go! The dollops of chocolate didn’t matter at all. They swirled through just fine. Isn’t it pretty?
Now to add your toppings.
I just kind of eyeball the bits as I sprinkle them over. I do try not to get any clumps, and keep the large chunks fairly evenly spaced, but I’m not obsessive about it.
They look pretty, huh?
I made one of the small trays with silver balls for a bit of contrast.
So now you’ve sprinkled your toppings, put the trays in the fridge and leave them alone for at least a half hour.
Once the chocolate it set, take it out, sprinkle on your glitter if you’re using it, and break it up.
You can make the pieces as large or small as you like, but I think they should be around 2″ x 2″. Not square of course, but that’s the kind of size you’re aiming for. Small enough for one bite for a greedy person, but large enough for two to three bites for a more restrained one.
Of course feel free to eat any pieces you feel are too small to gift.
You can see the glitter, but it looks marvellous in the light, really sparkly.
I admit, I did tweak this picture for Instagram. But I promise it really does look gorgeous in real life. In fact I wrote up this step-by-step post up because a bunch of people asked me to.
This made enough for two tins, which I didn’t measure but are around 8″ x 5″ and perhaps 2.5″ deep.
The tins are from the pound shop (bargain) and have a Christmas theme. I didn’t actually take proper pictures of them, and it’s too late now because they’ve been given away, but you can use any tin. You probably want to go smallish rather than large cake tin size.
I lined them with silver foil because it looks nice.
And I promise you, every single person who has received this Christmas Chocolate Bark as a gift has raved about it. And quite right too, because it’s delicious.
Here are a few more suggestions for Chocolate Bark varieties:
Silver balls, stars, candy snowflakes, red & green chocolate beans, mini marshmallows, or any other kind of festive sprinkles you like.
You could theme this for different holidays.
Colour the white chocolate orange and/or green for Halloween with sprinkles.
Pink/blue/yellow white chocolate with Easter sprinkles.
How about a sweet/salty version with bashed up caramel candy, pretzels, sprinkled with a little sea salt?
Or just different coloured white chocolate with unicorn sprinkles? You could even add strawberry powder to some of the white chocolate for a different taste. (By the way, that strawberry powder is genius, wonderful in buttercream.)
The possibilities are endless!
Anyway, happy making, eating, and giving, and let me know how you get along!
Merry Christmas!
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Want more festive fun? Read more Christmas posts here.
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