I saw Ina Garten make this in one of her shows and I thought, “Wow that looks really easy!”
And believe me, it was really easy! All you have to do is melt chocolate of your choice (I used half dark chocolate and half milk chocolate to balance the bitterness of the chocolate) in a heatproof bowl over boiling water, making sure that the boiling water didn’t touch the bowl. The process might be slow but the chocolate comes out really beautiful and shiny.
Then you spread the chocolate over wax or parchment paper and sprinkle your choice of nuts and dried fruit and let it cool and become solid. It’s important to remember that you shouldn’t put the cooling chocolate into the fridge. Doing this will cause the chocolate to lose its sheen. Also, if you intend to use dark chocolate (60% or higher), it might be a good idea to temper the chocolate with a heaping teaspoon of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla paste so that the bitter taste is calmed down.
Once the chocolate has cooled and hardened, you can either use a sharp knife to slice the chocolate into shapes or break them apart with your hands. I prefer the knife option though, because if you break the chocolate up with your hands, the natural heat of your hands will make you leave finger prints all over the chocolate.
You can vary the sprinkles, depending on who this is for. I placed salted cashews, dried apricots, dried berries and dried cranberries. This makes for a tasty goodie bag item, which I learned, is also called a “hostess giveaway”
Yellywelly 