THE PERFECT AFTERNOON TREAT - CHOCOLATE BARK

This may be the 3pm pick up that you need in your life right now

The 20th October was ‘office chocolate day’’ so if you work from home or are anything like me, you feel the need for a  3pm pick me up daily.  I don't know about you, but mine usually results in a coffee and something sweet.
Now, as I have zero self-control, I would happily eat a full bar of chocolate around this time then feel so deflated afterwards due to the sugar crash – SO, I decided to make this chocolate bark as it is the perfect substitute! Still sweet and chocolatey but with delicious nutritional content. 

This chocolate bark is 70% dark chocolate, topped with peanut butter swirls, goji berries, pistachios, crystalized ginger for a bite and coconut shavings.

This sweet treat kick is incredibly easy to make but with a mixture of protein, antioxidants, healthy fats and of course chocolate – You have to give it a go! 

With only a few ingredients, this can be whipped up in 10 minutes & then with only 30 mins to cool in the fridge, this whole recipe can be ready in under 1 hour.

Ingredients:
 1 x cup good quality chocolate broken into little chunks. I used Whittakers 70% dark Ghana
½ cup peanut butter. I used extra crunchy from Fix and Fogg.
1 x tsp Vanilla essence
 
Toppings:
 This is where you can have fun but for this recipe I used:

1/3 cup Goji Berries
1/4 Crystalized ginger chopped into smaller chunks
1/3 Pistachios chopped
1 heaped spoon of desiccated coconut to sprinkle on the top.

Instructions:
 
First, add chocolate to a bowl and mix in the vanilla essence. Next, melt down your chocolate slowly and continue to stir this with a spoon until it is smooth with no lumps.
 
From there, line a tray with baking paper and pour into the tray until it is spread across the paper and is about ½ cm thick.

Melt the peanut butter in the microwave and with a spoon begin to gently pour onto the chocolate with a spoon creating patterns (no need to – it just looks nicer)
 
From there it’s just a case of sprinkling on your toppings – GO WILD. This is the fun bit. Get creative with colours and flavours.
 
Once the chocolate is looking beautifully decorated, pop in the fridge and let set for 30 mins. Once set, break apart and enjoy!
 
Other Flavour combination Ideas:
 - Dried raspberry and white chocolate drops.
 - White chocolate as your base and create a Christmas themed chocolate bark gift.
 -Adding peppermint essence instead of vanilla (use only half the quantity) top with cinnamon sprinkle and milk choco chips - decadent but you know you want to give it a go!

Don’t forget to send me any of your ideas, I would love to try out new flavours.
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Enjoy xoxo