Salted Chocolate Bark
Personalize this easy and rustic treat with a handful of coconut flakes, almond slivers, peanut butter - whatever your holiday spirit desires! Put a few pieces of bark in a re-sealable jar for a decadent holiday gift.
Yield
20 - 25 Servings
Ingredients
- ¼ pound mini pretzels
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 (12-ounce) bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips or 2 (3-ounce) dark chocolate bars
- Sea salt
Suggested Additions: A handful of coconut flakes, almond slivers, hazelnuts and/or dried blueberries, ¼ cup peanut butter or almond butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°. Wrap a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
- Spread pretzels in a single flat layer on baking sheet.
- Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once butter has melted, stir in sugar to combine. Allow mixture to softly simmer. Do not boil - lower heat as necessary. Stir occasionally for 3 minutes or until mixture has caramelized.
- Pour mixture evenly over pretzels - the caramel hardens quickly so it's important to do this step quickly. Tilt baking sheet to help spread caramel evenly.
- Bake pretzel mixture for 5-7 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.
- Set up a double boiler - fill a saucepan about a quarter-way with water. Heat over medium heat. If using dark chocolate bars, break up bars into bite-sized pieces. Pour chocolate chips or dark chocolate pieces into a glass bowl (preferably one with a rim) that is larger than saucepan. Set glass bowl on top of saucepan, making sure that the water doesn't touch the bottom of bowl.
- Stir constantly until chocolate is completely melted. If using any extra ingredients (such as the suggested additions above), stir into chocolate until well incorporated.
- Pour melted chocolate evenly over baked pretzels - tilt baking sheet to spread chocolate evenly. Use a rubber spatula to smooth out thick spots of chocolate. Sprinkle a few pinches of sea salt evenly over bark.
- Place in refrigerator to chill and harden for at least 2 hours. For easy serving, break bark with hands or cut into squares to share. Enjoy!