Go Back
Print

Strawberry Chocolate Bark

Ingredients

  • 1 pound chopped semi-sweet chocolate or your favorite good quality chocolate
  • 3/4-1 cup freeze dried strawberries
  • 2 ounces chopped white chocolate or white chocolate chips
  • 1 teaspoon shortening I use non-hydrogenated

Instructions

  1. (To insure that your chocolate is shiny, with a good snap and no white spots, you'll need to temper it. The following steps are one quick way to do that.)
  2. Melt about 3/4 of the chocolate (12 ounces) in microwave stirring at 15-30 second intervals until thoroughly melted. Ideally you want the mixture at about 115 degrees. Add the remaining chopped chocolate into the bowl of warm melted chocolate and stir until the pieces are melted and the chocolate mixture is smooth. The addition of the unmelted chocolate should bring the temperature down. You want to get it to 81 degrees. Finally, put the chocolate back into the microwave and heat at 10-15 second intervals, stirring after each until the temperature reaches 88-90 degrees F.
  3. Spread the melted chocolate on a parchment lined baking sheet to desired thickness. Top with strawberries.
  4. Place the white chocolate and shortening in a small bowl and heat in the microwave stirring every 15 seconds until melted and smooth. If it seems too thick, add a bit more shortening.
  5. Place melted white chocolate into a plastic Ziploc bag, cut off the tip and drizzle over bark.
  6. Chill until set then break into pieces.

Recipe Notes

*I found the freeze dried strawberries at Trader Joe's.

*Why go through all the tempering of the chocolate? It will insure your bark is shiny and snaps when it sets up. If your chocolate doesn't set up well or has a white haze, it hasn't been tempered properly. You can try to skip taking any temperatures and just go with melting the first 3/4 of chocolate thoroughly and then adding the chunks of the remaining chocolate, stirring until it's completely melted.

Recipe Source: Food Network Magazine, Jan/Feb 2015 Issue

The Merchant Baker Copyright © 2015