Halloween Bark
With spooky eyeballs and colorful Halloween sprinkles, Halloween Bark is a fun and easy candy treat to get the season rolling!
There’s no doubt about it, chocolate’s a crowd-pleaser! And as nice as it is all alone, it’s even more fun dressed up for Halloween!
After years of spending fall focused on preserving the harvest, this year I decided to have more fun and get with the Halloween festivities.
And so I was delighted to discover this easy and tasty Halloween Bark! It comes together in a snap.
Why You’ll Love This!
Flavorful. Who doesn’t like chocolate! Go with your favorite—dark, milk, or even white!
Easy. This is as simple as melt, pour, spread, then sprinkle!
Cute and Fun. While I’m not normally a candy snacker, these were so cute and fun that we really enjoyed have them around to nosh on!
What You’ll Need
Ingredients
- Chocolate. This forms the base of the candy. I recommend real chocolate–either chips that contain cocoa butter and cocoa or good quality chocolate bars.
- Decorations. Halloween sprinkles and eyeballs provide the Halloween spirit. Candy corn and other seasonal candies are also good options.
Special Tools
- No special tools are needed.
Step by Step Overview
Line a baking sheet with parchment. Open your sprinkle containers to they are ready to go before the chocolate hardens. If starting with chocolate candy bars rather than chocolate chips, chop or break them into pieces for better melting.
Melt the chocolate. Put the chocolate into a microwave rounded glass bowl (for easier stirring) and heat on high for 30 seconds. Remove and stir vigorously. Heat again for 30 seconds and stir vigorously again. After this, heat in 10 second intervals followed by stirring until melted.
Alternatively heat and stir in a double boiler or a bowl that covers a saucepan of boiling water that doesn’t touch the bowl.
Pour the melted chocolate onto the parchment and spread it out to the desired thickness.
Sprinkle with colored sprinkles, then press in the candy eyeballs.
Cool in the refrigerator, then “snap” or cut into pieces when cool and crisp.
Variations and Special Diets
While I’ve stayed with your basic sprinkles (plus eyeballs), you can also add candies. Candy corn is particularly popular. This could even be a way to use up extra Halloween candy!
If you want to take this lower carb or keto, there are now a number of delicious sugar free chocolates available. While you’re not likely to find sugar free sprinkles, these won’t add a lot of sugar for a single piece.
If you are looking for vegan, double check the ingredients on any added candy for animal products and go with a dark chocolate (again double check) rather than a milk or white chocolate.
Tips & FAQs
As much as possible, contrast the color of your sprinkles with your chocolate. Since I used a dark chocolate, I found the black pieces barely visible. Fortunately, they were a small part of the mix. But it could be a bigger problem with a darker mix—and it was something I didn’t think of when I bought the sprinkles.
Go generous on the amount of sprinkles. I found that when I broke by Halloween Bark into pieces, a surprising number of sprinkles popped off.
I also decided it was best to place the eyeballs individually by hand. This helped ensure they faced outwards to creepily stare at you! And if you can find a package where there are eyeballs of different sizes, that’s especially fun!
My other advice is the press these in even a bit more as they were susceptible to falling off even when I wasn’t snapping pieces off.
Finally, since this recipe doesn’t include tempering the chocolate (the process that makes chocolate glossy and crisp, but which is a bit challenging), consider keeping the finished candy, covered, in your refrigerator to stay crisper.
Halloween Bark
Ingredients
- 12 ounces chocolate approx. from 1 package chocolate chips or 3-4 chocolate bars
- 1 package Halloween sprinkles
- 1 package candy eyeballs ideally a package with varying sizes
Instructions
- Open your sprinkle containers to they are ready to go before the chocolate hardens.
- If starting with chocolate candy bars rather than chocolate chips, chop or break them into pieces for better melting.
- Melt the chocolate. Put the chocolate into a microwave rounded glass bowl (for easier stirring) and heat on high for 30 seconds. Remove and stir vigorously. Heat again for 30 seconds and stir vigorously again. After this, heat in 10 second intervals followed by stirring until melted. (Alternatively heat and stir in a double boiler or a bowl that covers a saucepan of boiling water that doesn’t touch the bowl.)
- Pour the melted chocolate onto the parchment and spread it out to the desired thickness.
- Sprinkle with colored sprinkles, then press in the candy eyeballs.
- Cool in the refrigerator, then break or cut into pieces when cool and crisp.
- Store in the refrigerator as need to preserve crispness.
Nutrition
Welcome to 2024’s #HalloweenTreatsWeek event!
If you’re new here, Welcome! If you’re a returning haunt, welcome back!
#HalloweenTreatsWeek is a yearly Halloween blogging event that is hosted by Angie from Big Bear’s Wife . This spooky event is an online, week-long event that is filled with some frightfully fun Halloween treats and recipes from some fantastic Halloween loving bloggers!
For this year’s 7th annual #HalloweenTreatsWeek event we have 12 hauntingly talented bloggers who are sharing their favorite Halloween recipes throughout the week! You can follow the hashtag #HalloweenTreatsWeek on social media to collect all of these frightful recipes to use at your own Halloween parties and events!
- Mozzarella Skull Caprese Pasta Salad from BigBearsWife
- Hocus Pocus Spell Book Rice Krispie Treats from Semi-Homemade Recipes
- Vanilla Citrus Cider from Jolene’s Recipe Journal
- Sally’s Worms Wort Nightmare Before Christmas Soup from The Spiffy Cookie
- Purple People Eater Macaron from A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
- Mini Pizza Skulls from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
- Halloween Candy Chocolate Pie from Sweet ReciPEAs
- Halloween Bark from Art of Natural Living
- Pumpkin Oatmeal Bread from A Day in the Life on the Farm
Amazing how you achieved such a gorgeous dark look without tempering. Next time, I’m going with chips!
I’m still struggling with the whole tempering issue Karen! I have tried keeping the melting temp low (below 97 for dark I believe) so it stays in temper, sous vide (total fail), adding food grade parafin, and classic tempering which I’m told doesn’t work with the small quantities I usually use. Wish I had the silver bullet!
I’m a total dark chocolate sucker! The darker the better for me. This is a great recipe to get the kiddos involved to help decorate.
Who doesn’t love chocolate, especially when it’s dressed up for Halloween? This Halloween Bark is such a fun and easy treat, perfect for getting into the festive spirit.
Great tips and I love the idea of using a dark chocolate!
This is always a fun project with the grandkids.