Cake Batter & Sprinkle Bark

Last night Laura and I attempted this new recipe: Cake Batter & Sprinkle Bark.  We found the recipe here: http://sweetapolita.com/2011/09/cake-batter-sprinkle-bark/

6 oz chopped dark or semi dark (high quality) baking chocolate (I used what I could find at the local grocery store)

12 oz chopped white (high quality) baking chocolate (again, I used what I found at the local grocery store)

3 teaspoons white cake mix

Sprinkles of choice

1. Line baking sheet with parchment.

2. Chop chocolate.

3. Melt dark chocolate in microwave safe bowl for 30 seconds.  Take chocolate out & stir.  Repeat as necessary until chocolate is melted and smooth.  DO NOT BURN YOUR CHOCOLATE.

4. Spread dark chocolate on parchment with rubber spatula.  Spread to desired thickness.  

5. Freeze for 20 minutes to set.

6. Melt white chocolate just like you did the dark chocolate.

7. Add cake mix to white chocolate.

8. Stir cake mix into white chocolate until chocolate is smooth.  Let set for 3 minutes to thicken.

9. Spread white chocolate over dark chocolate to desired thickness.

10. Add desired amount of sprinkles.

11. Freeze for 20 minutes to set.

12. Break into pieces & store in refrigerator.

The recipe is surprising simple.  We did make a few tweaks to it, just to see how it would work.  I will tell you DO NOT omit the parchment or substitute it for something like wax paper.  The parchment paper was so, so nice & made it super simple to break the bark.  The chocolate just lifted right up and there wasn't much of a mess to clean up either.  Also, I would up the cake mix to either 3 TBSP or leave it out all together.  The recipe calls for 3 teaspoons of cake mix and you couldn't even tell that it was added in.

On the large (regular size) cookie sheet, we substituted the baking chocolate for milk chocolate chocolate chips and white chocolate chocolate chips (We used Hershey's brand).  We didn't chop up the chocolate chips because we figured they were small enough already.  We weren't sure the chocolate chips would melt like baking chocolate.  It melted just fine though and spread just as easily as the baking chocolate.  After we melted the white chocolate and added the cake mix the directions tell you to let it sit for 3 minutes to thicken up.  The white chocolate chips thickened up fairly quickly.  In comparison, the baking chocolate didn't thicken up noticeably.   

For the smaller cookie sheet we did use the baking chocolate.  However, we only did half a batch because I didn't know how much baking chocolate to buy & I only bought one box of semi sweet chocolate and one box of white chocolate. (which wasn't enough oz of white chocolate).

The recipe calls for 6 oz dark or semi dark chocolate and 12 oz white chocolate.  I wondered how that would make the bark turn out.  Only using the 6 oz of dark chocolate made it so there was only a thin layer of the dark chocolate on the bottom and a thicker layer of the white chocolate on top.  I think the intent is to mellow out the intensity of the dark chocolate.

We used the sprinkles that are soft. I wouldn't use the crystallized sugar sprinkles.  The reason I say that is that the bark is hard enough, you don't need hard sprinkles too.  Plus, the bark was frozen when we tried it (as per the directions) so it was nice to have a little bit of softness.

We worried that the chocolate would turn when we put it in the freezer.  The directions tell you to freeze the dark chocolate layer for 20 minutes.  We only left it in the freezer for 11 minutes and it was plenty frozen plus, it didn't turn it white either!  The milk chocolate chocolate chip version did start to melt some when we added the white chocolate chips to it.  Not sure if it was because the white chocolate was too hot or if it's because we only froze the bottom layer for 11 minutes.  I didn't have any problems with the baking chocolate melting when I put the white chocolate on and it was only frozen for 11 minutes too.  I also don't think the white baking chocolate sat for the entire 3 minutes.

All in all I'd say this recipe is a keeper.  It's super simple and it's actually quite fast to make.  I would suggest that you don't leave your bark pieces too large.  It's a lot of chocolate (both the chocolate chip and baking chocolate versions and neither one was dark chocolate) and I think if you ate more than a few small pieces you'd be ready to puke (ok, I know you would be...just trust me).  After we cut our bark into pieces we just put the pieces into a gallon size ziplock bag and put it in the refrigerator to keep it from melting.

Happy Baking!