My fellow ladies, in a world of designer cupcakes, fondant sculpted birthday cakes, home made pies with lattice crust and leaf cut outs, we are under tremendous pressure to produce an amazing dessert that shoots fire and puts itself out! Well, here is an incredibly simple dessert that will make your friends stop in their tracks and stand in awe of your amazing culinary talent! This dessert is not only amazingly easy to prepare, it is also colorful, festive and best of all portable!! WE have all tried to arrive to our mother-in- law’s home with our beautiful creation wedged between our feet in the car as we try in vain to have it arrive picture perfect!
I call this dessert simply, Holiday Bark, since it can be featured at 3 premiere holidays, simply by changing one ingredient! Best part, your guest will be so very impressed with your creativity and flair!
INGREDIENTS:
FOR HALLOWEEN OR THANKSGIVING
- 2 pounds of white chocolate chips or melting chocolate discs
- dried cranberries,
- dried apricots (diced)
- chopped walnuts or almonds
FOR CHRISTMAS
- 2 pounds of white chocolate chips or melting chocolate discs
- dried cranberries
- golden raisins
- roasted pistachios
Directions:
Melt the chocolate either in the microwave or double boiler. You may follow directions on the package.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Pour the melted chocolate on to the covered cookie sheet.
Sprinkle with cranberries, apricots and nuts. Sprinkle as much as you like! That’s the beauty of this dessert!
Chill for 1 hour.
Remove from refrigerator and break apart into pieces. You can serve on a platter or wrap in cellophane bags and tie with holiday ribbon!
You can make this bark a few days ahead of time and store in a cool dry place. Personally, I love to place my holiday bark in cellophane candy bags ( a great bargain at Michael’s with the 40% coupon). That way I can prepare ahead of time, store in a container and even take the container with me to the party along with a platter and plate the festive treats there! For some reason, everyone thinks wrapped cellophane food is fancy! Those of us who have taken a cake or pie to the potluck also have to deal with taking a half eaten, messy dessert back home. No hostess seems to want half a chocolate cake at her house! With this wrapped holiday dessert, guests can take dessert home with them and it is no problem for your hostess to keep leftovers!
This holiday bark is so easy it took me longer to write this blog than to make the actual dessert!