Chocolate Pretzel and Raspberry Christmas Bark

Makes about 12 pieces. Prep 15 minutes. No baking, plus 1 hour setting.

1. Line a tray of about 20cm by 30cm with baking paper, letting it come up the sides.
2. Halve the chocolate raspberries, roughly chop the almonds and break half the pretzels.
3. Put every topping in its own bowl beside the tray before you melt anything.
4. Set two thirds of the chopped chocolate in a dry heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.
5. Stir until it has just melted and feels no warmer than your fingertip, then lift the bowl off the pan.
6. Stir in the remaining third of the chocolate until it has all disappeared, which cools the mixture down.
7. Pour it into the tray and spread it to about 5mm with the back of a spoon.
8. Scatter the pretzels first, then the raspberries, then the almonds, pressing each layer in lightly.
9. Finish with the shards of speckle, hundreds and thousands facing up, and a pinch of sea salt flakes.
10. Leave it at cool room temperature for about an hour, or in the fridge if the kitchen is warm.
11. Lift the paper out and snap the slab into uneven pieces with your hands.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a set slab, not a tempered confectioner's bar, and it is worth saying so before you judge the finish. Stirring the reserved third of chocolate in at the end brings the temperature down and gives you a better snap, but a home kitchen in December is not a temperature controlled room. If it sets with a pale streak or a dull patch, that is cocoa butter finding its way to the surface, the same thing behind chocolate turning white in summer. It tastes exactly the same.

Once it has set, store it cold. Keep the pieces in an airtight container in the fridge, take them out ten minutes before they go on the table, and keep the container off a sunny bench. If you would rather buy the set chocolate than make it, VPC Rocky Road Raspberry is the ready made version of the same idea, and rose Turkish delight rocky road is the thick stirred through slab if you want a second, different tray on the table.

Common questions

How do I stop the chocolate going streaky?

Three things do most of the work. Keep water out of the bowl, because a single drop makes melted chocolate seize into a grainy paste. Do not let it get hot, only just melted. And stir the reserved third in at the end so the whole bowl cools before you pour. Even then a home made slab can dry with a paler bloom on it, and that is cosmetic rather than a fault. Setting it at cool room temperature gives a better looking finish than the fridge, so use the fridge only when the kitchen is too warm to set it at all.

How long does bark keep?

The chocolate is not the part with a clock on it, the crunch is. Our pack information gives the chocolate pretzels an average shelf life of nine months unopened, stored cool and dry, but once they are pressed into a slab they soften. We would make this no more than two or three days before it is wanted, keep it airtight and cold, and cut it on the day. Made a week ahead it will still taste good and it will not snap.

Can I post this as a gift?

Keep the bark for people you will hand it to. An Australian summer post run is no place for a slab of set chocolate, and there is no packing trick that changes that. For a gift that has to travel, send an unopened pack instead: the Valley Produce Company range is made and sealed for the shelf, and the whole shelf sits under chocolate and confectionery. Then make the bark for the table at home.

VPC Milk Chocolate Pretzels are $14.95 for 150g and one pack tops a whole tray. Two trays and a few packs make a respectable pile of homemade Christmas food gifts, and the ready made versions are in family Christmas gifts. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100.