To make chocolate bark — a sweet, tasty snack or dessert - you just melt chocolate, mix in some extra ingredients and spread it out in a pan to harden. It’s simplicity itself, but there’s lots of opportunity to be creative!

I’m making mine with white chocolate chips, Spanish peanuts and dried cranberries. I like the salty sweet combination of the nuts with the cranberries and white chocolate.

You can also use pretzels, chopped apricots, candied ginger, cashews, pecans, and lots of other ingredients. Many, many things go well with melted chocolate! Choose your ingredients to mix up the textures and the colors.

For the chocolate, you can use chocolate chips or a chocolate bar, using white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate or a swirled combination of all three.  If you are using a bar of chocolate, chop it into small pieces so it will melt more evenly.

In a medium size, microwave safe,mixing bowl, slowly melt the chocolate in the microwave. Start melting the chocolate chips on high for about 1 minute and 30 seconds. Then zap them in 15 second increments until the chocolate is melted.

Chocolate chips don’t really change their shape until you mix them with a spoon or spatula. Be sure not to zap them past the melting point. 12 ounces of chocolate chips in my microwave took 2 minutes and 15 seconds to melt.

2 Cups of add-ins to 12 ounces of chocolate is the perfect ratio! I’m actually adding only 2/3 cup of the cranberries into the mixture and the remainder I’m going to be sprinkling on top.

Gently mix everything together.

Now, line a 9 x 13 x 2 inch pan with wax paper or parchment paper.

Spoon the chocolate mixture into the prepared pan and spread it evenly out over the bottom of the pan. (Hang onto the wax paper when you are doing this!)

Sprinkle on the remaining cranberries.

Put the bark in the refrigerator to harden. This should take 1-2 hours.

Once set, lift the bark out of the pan and peel off the wax paper.

You could use a knife to cut it into pieces.

But it’s more fun to break it apart with your hands into uneven chunks.

Serve it as is, or wrap it up to give away as a gift!

If there are any leftovers, store them in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

You can view and print this recipe here.

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