Bark You Want to Bite

So, every time I make truffles or cake shots, I dread the "dipping."  On one level, this is because I want an enrobing machine.  You know, like the ones on every other episode of Unwrapped.  At the very least, I'd like a fancy chocolate tempering contraption.  On another, much more reasonable level, it's that dipping small quantities of product is a challenge.  You don't want to melt too much chocolate and waste it; you don't want to melt not enough chocolate and find your self scraping the bowl.

Since I don't see a $15,000 piece of candy equipment in my immediate future, I've come up with the next best solution:  chocolate bark!  No, really.

See, the problem lies in having chocolate leftover.  You can't really re-melt it without major streaking, so you have to do something with it.  There's little easier than dumping it on some parchment paper and sprinkling with tasty accoutrements.  It's so easy, there is no recipe.  There are only ideas...

Here I have some lovely milk chocolate to which I've added toasted pecans and sea salt:

Here's a dabbling in dark chocolate--I added toasted almonds and dried cranberries:

What else?  How about dried bananas?  Or apricots?  Dried cherries might actually make me swoon.  Any nut would be great.  You could even go with crushed pretzels.  Or potato chips.   

I've always thought of bark as a great gift.  Perhaps that's why I don't think of it every time I have extra chocolate.  The timing doesn't match.  Now that I have put the ideas together, one of two things will happen:  I'll become one of those people who gives little gifts of chocolate for no reason at all or I'll gain twenty pounds.  I'm going to go with the former.  It's almost summer, after all, and I've a yen to show some skin.  Gotta keep an eye on the old figure, eh? 

Make some for fun, make some to make someone smile, make some to...

Keep it sweet.

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