Chocolate bark with strawberries, raspberries and cherries

This is so much fun to make and gift! If you’ve never worked with chocolate before, it may seem intimidating, but even if something goes wrong during the tempering stage, the chocolate bark will still taste delicious, even without that desirable snap.

You can use any dark chocolate you like, as long as it melts beautifully. And any toppings, really. This combination of freeze-dried strawberries and raspberries, dried sweet cherries and hemp hearts is quite grown up, and not very sweet at all. Play around with your favourite ingredients – perhaps pistachios, dried apricots and raisins, or bits of gingerbread cookie with candied ginger (this is a personal favourite!), or chocolate covered coffee beans, roasted almonds and lemon zest. Or go bananas with these. But whatever you do – give it a go!

Dark chocolate bark with strawberries, raspberries & cherries

Makes enough for 2 – 4 small bags

Ingredients

150g dark chocolate (minimum 60% cocoa solids), very finely chopped

5g (1/4 cup) freeze-dried raspberries

5g (1/4 cup) freeze-dried strawberries

1 teaspoon shelled hemp seeds, optional

40g (1/4 cup) dried sweet cherries, roughly chopped

Method

1. Melt 2/3 of the chocolate in a double boiler until just melted, stirring continuously. As soon as it has melted, stir in the rest of the chocolate until all has melted.  You could also melt the chocolate in a microwave in 15 second bursts, stirring after each, until just melted. Do not let the chocolate get warm.
2. Pour the melted chocolate onto a large piece of greaseproof paper and quickly spread out to about 1/4” thickness with a spatula.
3. Quickly scatter  over all the toppings  evenly, then set aside to cool completely.
4. Peel away the paper and snap into pieces.