Homemade thin chocolate bars that are perfect for celebrations. This dark chocolate bark recipe with candies is perfect for Valentine's Day. We top it with pink-colored chocolate swirls, sprinkles and chopped mini eggs. It takes 10 minutes to put together and extra time to set, and that's it.
This is a quick and easy candy if you want to give a homemade chocolate gift.
Chocolate bark is a way of making homemade bars with your chosen ingredients. So it can vary with each holiday.
We make double chocolate bark with white and dark chocolate, chopped cookies, and nuts as Christmas gifts. And spooky bark with candy eyes for Halloween and a pastel-colored bark for Easter.
Bark can be decorated with different things, from sprinkles, colored chocolate, your favorite, crushed cookies, jelly beans, etc. So be creative and choose what you like.
Ingredient list
I like to use melting chocolate (wafers) for this recipe, the type used for candy-making, because it melts quickly (especially white chocolate, which can be tricky to melt) and has a good shine.
Any baking bar that you usually use and melts well works though they can turn quite dull after they dry, especially dark chocolate.
- Chocolate: I use melting chocolate, such as Mercken's melting chocolate wafers. Or use good chocolate that melts well, such as Callebaut 54% chocolate wafers (love it). If you want a sweeter bark, use milk chocolate melts.
- Food coloring: make sure it's oil-based or it won't dissolve in chocolate! I use Dustcolor powder food dye.
- Decoration: Pastel-colored sprinkles, mini eggs and m&m's of which we used the pink, white and brown, whole and chopped. Or any other edible decoration you want. There's no right or wrong as long as you like it.
See the recipe card at the end of this post for quantities.
How to make Valentine's bark
Toppings: let your imagination flow. There are many color combinations and different decorations to use. There's no right or wrong way.
The melted dark chocolate is spread on parchment paper. Don't make too thick of a layer as it will be harder to break up and also to eat. An offset spatula is a great tool for this.
Next comes drizzled pink chocolate and extras like pink, white chopped mini eggs, and pink and purple candies.
Cutting pieces of bark
Use a kitchen knife to cut pieces of cold chocolate bark. This is the less messy way.
Or use your hands to break uneven pieces. This method will make some of the toppings fall from the chocolate.
Vintage Kitchen tip: chill it in the fridge so it sets up faster. But when you remove it, let it stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes or until it's easier to cut.
Kitchen Notes
- Organization: read the recipe first and ensure you have ingredients at the correct temperatures, equipment, and enough workspace. This will make the process so much easier!
- Food coloring: make sure it's oil-based, usually labeled food colors for chocolate. Otherwise, it will not dissolve in chocolate! I use powder color, but you can use gels.
- Refrigerator: chilling the bark is the easiest and fastest way to solidify it. You can also leave it at room temperature, which will take a while (sometimes hours). The freezer also works if you're in a hurry, but be careful it doesn't get too cold, and it's hard to break up.
- Breaking up the bark: I recommend waiting about 20 minutes if it has been chilled before you cut or break it up with your hands; it'll be easier.
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Valentine's Chocolate Bark
Ingredients
- 2 oz white chocolate
- 10 oz dark or milk chocolate
- Pastel colors food coloring oil-based, dissolves in chocolate
- ⅓ cup assorted sprinkles, chopped mini eggs, or other Valentine's edibles
Instructions
- Line two baking sheets (that will fit in your refrigerator) with wax paper.
- Chop chocolates separately (if not using candy melts or wafers).
- Melt the white chocolate. I use the microwave (15-second spurts mixing well between each). Or use a double boiler.
- Pour the melted white chocolate into a small bowl, or more, depending on the number of colors you want to make. I only used light pink, but you can use several colors. And even use white chocolate without coloring it.
- Mix the food coloring of choice. Depending on your brand of coloring (mine was a powder), you might need more or less to get the type of hue you want. Start small, with a pinch, mix well and add more if necessary. If you want several colored chocolates, you might need to melt more white chocolate than specified in the recipe.
- On the prepared baking sheet, pour the melted semisweet chocolate.
- Spread it on the paper with an offset spatula, knife, or the back of a spoon. Don't make it too thick, or it will be hard to break up. Between ⅛ and ¼ inch is what you want.
- Drizzle the colored chocolate of choice. Don't overdo it.
- Sprinkle with chopped mini eggs, sprinkles, or other edibles you might've chosen.
- You can drizzle some extra chocolate after sprinkling the candies. There's no right or way to do this; whatever you like is fine.
- Refrigerate for about 20 minutes until completely hardened. The time depends on the thickness.
- Separate the cold chocolate rectangle carefully from the paper.
- Use a kitchen knife to cut it into pieces.
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