12 Days of Christmas Cookies – Day Two: Chocolate Nut Bark
Posted by limpetfan | Posted in 12 Days of Christmas Cookies, Cooking, holidays | Posted on 14-12-2009-05-2008
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Every year at Christmas, I make cookies to give away to my family and friends. Usually it’s on a small scale – a couple of kinds of cookies or cupcakes. This year, though, I have a lot more people to incorporate into my giving. Initially this freaked me out, because I had no idea how I’d get it all done. Then I realized this was an opportunity to have fun with the baking, and I began to see it as a challenge. So… I have decided to make 15 types of cookies/candy and 3 kinds of bread in the next 12 days. I will give away almost all of what I make to family and friends (I suspect some of it will disappear mysteriously overnight when little elves in my apartment get hungry). With any luck, the next 12 days will chronicle my attempt at making this happen – or else it’s going to document my horrible failure!
Today is Day Two of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies Series, and I made chocolate nut bark. I got the recipe out of the December 2009 issue of RealSimple Magazine.
I know I made peppermint bark on Day One, so it might seem like a bit of a cop-out to be making a second “bark” on Day Two. The success of the peppermint bark has given me confidence in working with chocolate, though, so I’m doing the chocolate nut bark before I lose my nerve!
Chocolate Nut Bark
2 lbs chopped up semi-sweet chocolate
1 lb (or whatever looks good) of mixed nuts
Set up a double boiler and melt the chocolate until it is smooth. Pour the melted chocolate on to a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and spread it out evenly. Cover the chocolate with the mixed nuts, pressing the nuts into the chocolate firmly. Place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to allow the chocolate to set. Once cooled, break the chocolate bark into bite-sized pieces.
Once again, I used chocolate chips for the recipe. I’m just too lazy to chop my own chocolate! I also used sliced almonds and whole shelled pecans, but I’m pretty sure any nut would work for this recipe.
This was a really easy recipe – all I had to do was dump my bag of chocolate chips into my make-shift double boiler and stir a bit until the chocolate was smooth and shiny:
This chocolate was a bit stickier than the white chocolate was yesterday, but I still got it onto the cookie sheet and pressed the almonds and pecans down with plenty of time before it started to cool.
Now, here is something I do have to say: it took longer than an hour for the chocolate to set. I had to leave it in the refrigerator for about two and a half hours before I was sure it was ready. Not really a big deal, just good to know. Then it was time to break up the sheet of chocolate bark, and according to my taste-tester, the final results are delicious!
© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.
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Hey I commented on this earlier! It must have disappeared when your blog crashed, and now I don’t remember what I said lol.
Oh whoops ignore that I thought this was the peppermint bark one lol.