Don't Break my Heart Chocolate Valentine Bark

Sometimes things make more sense in your head than in real life. For instance, in my head this seemed brilliant and when I showed the finished product to Rob he was enthusiastic (well as enthusiastic as he tends to get :) about how pretty it was and how neat it was. He then asked what the hammer was for… um, oops.

So I had the brilliant idea to make a Valentine gift in the form a chocolate bark heart. I mean, chocolate bark is stupid easy to make and can easily be made into shapes. And when I saw an 8″ heart cake pan at Amazon there was no way I wasn’t having it. And when I realized that it would be the perfect Valentine heart chocolate bark shape, it was on like, well, Donkey Kong, I suppose.

So I made my thing. I was proud of my thing. It was just as I pictured it in my head. And then Rob asked “why would you want to give somebody your heart to break on Valentine’s Day?” Oh. Crud.

I am all about personalized gifts and even better when they are homemade. My husband isn’t fond of anything, like nothing and I have mentioned this before on the blog. So it’s quite a challenge to gift him something on his birthday, our anniversary or valentine’s day. In fact believe it or not, this time I didn’t give him anything on his birthday, like nothing. I know so bad, I usually bake something special for him since that is what makes him happy but this time I couldn’t even bake a cake!  We were in Dubai then while on our way to India so practically I did nothing and even though it didn’t bother him I felt really sad about the whole thing.

Since then, I have been thinking about how to make valentine’s day special for him this year. Last year I made these fortune cookies with personalized messages for valentines day which he LOVED and so this year I have decided to make edible gift for him again. He has a big sweet tooth and so I have decided to go ahead with these easy valentines day chocolate bark. Don’t they look pretty?

Ingredients

• 8 oz semi-sweet chocolate or dark chocolate
• 8 oz white chocolate
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil, divided
• 1/3 cup M&M's® Strawberry

Instructions

1. Chop your semi-sweet or dark chocolate into small pieces.
2. Heat little water in a pan on medium-low heat. Once the water starts simmering (not boiling) put the bowl with the chocolate on top of it. The base of the bowl should not be touching the water. This is called the double-boiler method, you may also melt your chocolate using the microwave.
3. Whisk at regular intervals, add in 1/2 teaspoon coconut oil and keep mixing till all the chocolate melts.
4. Remove the bowl from heat and pour the melted chocolate in a 8 inch square pan lined with parchment paper.
5. Spread the chocolate with a spatula making sure it reaches all corners. Now keep the pan in the refrigerator for 10-12 minutes [no more!]
6. While the pan is in the refrigerator chop the white chocolate and transfer it to a bowl.
7. Place the water on top of a pan with simmering water (not boiling). Make sure the base of the bowl isn't in contact with water.
8. Add 1/2 teaspoon of oil and keep whisking till all the white chocolate is melted.
9. Take the pan out of the refrigerator, the 1st layer of chocolate will be little set by now (but not completely set - you don't want that!).
10. Pour the melted white chocolate on top and spread it using a spatula. Make sure the white chocolate completely covers the chocolate layer underneath.
11. Sprinkle M&M's® Strawberry on top.
12. Refrigerate for around 1 hour. Once the bark is set, break it into pieces and enjoy!