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.

But I’m still sharing it and I’m still sticking with it. I’ve dubbed it the “Don’t Break My Heart” chocolate Valentine bark and I’m sticking by it as a super cute little gift. Bedsides… even if he did see a flaw in the concept, Rob did say that this bark was “amazing” and “so fun”. So let’s just go ahead and get going then!

For this project you will need:

• 8″ heart shaped cake pan
• 8″ snack boxes
• wooden crab mallets
• melting chocolates
• Valentine’s Day sprinkles
• craft acrylic paint in pink or red + a brush and tape

Paint your mallet as you please. I went with a bit of pink enamel paint in the middle of the handle for mine. You can get really fancy or keep it very simple. If you’re worried about the paint coming into contact with food you can also leave the mallet as is.

Generously grease your heart shaped pan (I used no stick spray) and place your chocolates into a microwaveable dish. These are pink candy melts by Wilton and they work super well…

Microwave in 15-30 second intervals (depending on  how strong your microwave is, really) and give a good stir in between. Once your chocolate gets to the almost all melted but still visible chunks don’t put it back in the microwave. It is so close to being overcooked so instead of adding more heat, simply stir the chocolate to melt anything still solid. Pour into the bottom of your pain and smooth out. Tap the pan on a solid surface, like the counter top to level out.

Continue layering, smoothing and tapping until you’re happy with the size/colors. Here I used chocolate chips that didn’t have another purpose and it didn’t work out so well. I’d continue using the chocolate wafers made for melting. At room temperature the chocolate top layer, from the chips became too soft to crack and break. You can also suggest that you this is stored in the fridge until ready to eat so it will cleanly crack no matter the chocolate you use…

Finish with some pretty sprinkles in the chocolate (you may need to push the larger things down a bit).

Place the chocolate in the fridge to fully set, or at least a few hours.

Once the chocolate has set gently place your hand on top of the bark and tip the chocolate heart shape out of the pan.

Now look at that!! Isn’t that super lovely?

Sat in the paper snack box with the mallet just on top and you have a pretty and very presentable little Valentine’s Day gift.

The recipient can smack the chocolate to break the heart and get their sweet love of snacking on :)

Isn’t that fun? Maybe a bit backwards considering the holiday but I can’t win them all ;)