Salted Pepperoni Chocolate Bark

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #PepItUp #CollectiveBias Forget chocolate covered bacon... the new treat this spring is Salted Pepperoni Chocolate Bark! Sweet chocolate blends with meaty pepperoni, making it the perfect new twist on a classic trend. #PepItUp #ad I’m not exactly sure who started this whole sweet and savory chocolate covered meat trend. I’ll be honest– I was even skeptical the first time I tried chocolate covered bacon. After that, it seemed people moved on to chocolate covered beef jerky, and now, well, I’ve found the next logical incarnation of the trend. A new season means it’s time to ditch the old chocolate covered meat we’ve come to know and love and try something new… and that something new? It’s Hormel pepperoni. Read more

But I Don’t Bake! Chocolate Bark

It happens every year. People send out the cookie exchange invitations, and there’s always that person that gets invited, but decides to turn down the invitation because they don’t bake. They may not come right out and say “Sorry, I don’t bake, so I can’t come.” But they’ll find ways to get out of going, for sure.

If you’re that person, be warned. I’m stripping you of your excuses, because you can absolutely make this. If you can work a microwave, you can make this.

Start with these beautiful Nestle Toll House Holiday Morsels.

Then, get you/your sous chef/your mom/your child/your brother to sort them by color.

I recruited my amazing sous chef/mom to sort them while I did the second step.

Okay, this is the really hard part… take foil, line a 9×13 pan, and set a single layer of chocolate graham crackers on the bottom of the pan.

Melt your three colors of chocolate chips in three separate microwave safe containers, stirring every 30 seconds of the melting process to keep from overcooking them.

Spread the brown molten chocolate onto the graham crackers. Then, blob red and green melted morsels onto the layers, making sure to alternate colors.

Take a knife and gently swirl it back and forth across the pan.

Draw lines with the knife in the other direction, too.

If you want, you can even drag the lines diagonally.

Stick the whole pan into the fridge until the chocolate is hard. Lift the foil out of the pan, then break apart the bark in small chunks– random shapes are fine.

Ta-da! Take that to your cookie exchange and impress everyone without lifting a finger. If you want to get fancy, you can stir in a total of a teaspoon of extract into the chocolate– mint is a favorite, but orange adds a surprising twist.

See? Even if you don’t bake, you can absolutely make this bark and go to a cookie exchange. You win, and everyone else wins, too.