Better than Fruitcake Bark
So the other day I get this hankering for something sweet. I keep waffling between fruity or chocolate-y and I decide I’m going to totally go dip a whole bunch of gummy bears in melted milk chocolate. And that sounded great and all until I started to think about how much WORK that seemed like. Itty bitty bears covered in chocolate sounded perfect for my candied conundrum but heck if I was going to go to all of that effort. I instead wound up eating chocolate chips and gummy bears together. Lazy, tasty but not nearly as good as the muddy bears I had envisioned in my head.
For days and days this sweet tooth hankering held on to me until I finally decided to figure something else out. Seeing a tub of candied fruits, meant for fruitcake baking, I grabbed the thing and pulled it to myself to read the ingredients list. Seeing that this little tub was mostly citrus peel I squealed in excitement. One of my favorite candies is chocolate covered candied orange slices! Tossing it into my cart at home I started to play around with my candied fruit and a variety of bags of chocolate chips I had on hand.
What came out of my kitchen was made using stuff you find in fruitcake, you know, fruit and nuts but it came out so. much. better. than. fruitcake. Not even playing. My Rob, who doesn’t eat chocolate stared at this bark in its tub on the counter for a good while that first evening it had been made, and then he waltzed into the bedroom where I was reading with a chocolate eating grin to inform me that was one of the best things he’d eaten in a long time. That my creation was plain amazing and that he hates fruitcake but apparently adores fruitcake chocolate bark. And Rob’s a foodie! He eats all sorts of fab things often! So even if you don’t trust me and my biscuits and gravy coveting palate over here, you can trust his that has eaten food all over the world 🙂
Better than Fruitcake Bark
This is another one of our super forgiving recipes. Feel free to add to, replace or omit any of the ingredients you and yours don’t absolutely love. As long as you’ve got chocolate chock-full of fruit and nuts this bark is going to be better than fruitcake but totally reminiscent of the holiday treat!
- Semisweet chocolate chips, 1 bag
- White chocolate chips, 1 bag
- Candied fruit mix (<– like this but I got mine at the grocery store in a tub)
- 1 Cup of cashews
- 1 Cup of walnut pieces
- Melt the bittersweet chocolate in the microwave, stirring and checking on the consistency often. Once most of the chocolate has melted, and you just have little bits that are still firm, stir to allow the heat from the melt-y stuff to finish off the chunks. This is a good way to keep from accidentally overheating your chocolate trying to get it all to melt.
- Smooth the melted chocolate onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Allow 10 minutes or so to mostly set up.
- Melt the white chocolate in the microwave, again melting until almost all liquid, but for the few bits, stirring to finish melting everything.
- Add 1 cup of candied fruit to the white chocolate and spread on top of the dark chocolate.
- While the white chocolate is still melted sprinkle the top with 1 cup of walnuts, 1 cup of cashews and a sprinkling of candied fruit. Press firmly to embed into the top.
- Allow to cool and harden. Cut into serving sized pieces.
