Chocolate Dipped Apricots & Chocolate Bark

This is a great recipe for a holiday, or to make anytime you just want some chocolate! It is much less expensive than buying vegan or dairy free chocolate bars, and tastes just as good, if not better! This recipe makes 22 oz of finished candy, and the ingredients cost between $8 and $12 in the USA, depending on where you buy them. The same amount of store bought vegan chocolate bars would be at least $19, and buying chocolate dipped apricots from a confectionery would be at least $25!

Both the dipped apricots and the bark make lovely gifts. You can make them look festive by packaging them in treat bags and adding colored ribbons that fit the occasion. I made mine for Ostara, so I used pastel spring colors:

I chose dried apricots, craisins, and pistachios, but you can customize the recipe to suit your taste by using your favorite dried fruits and nuts, using only fruit, or only nuts. As long as you keep the same ratio of add-ins to chocolate, you can easily make this your own!

I made both dipped apricots and bark because you really can’t use all of your tempered chocolate for dipping. Once you have used up a certain amount of the chocolate, there isn’t enough depth left to get pretty results. If you are ok with some odd looking apricots, you can dip as many good ones as you can, and then use additional apricots to scrape up the remaining chocolate towards the end. You should be able to dip 48 to 60 dried apricots, depending on their size, before you have to start scraping. If you only want to make chocolate bark, increase the combined weight of the dried fruit and chopped nuts to 6 oz (approximately 1 1/2 cups).

 

STEP 1:  Get all of your ingredients ready and make sure they are at room temperature. Then, set up your work space so everything you will need is ready to go:

STEP 2:  Follow the directions in my post on How to Temper Chocolate, then dip your apricots about 2/3 of the way into the tempered chocolate. Carefully place each dipped apricot onto parchment to dry and harden:

STEP 3:  If desired, sprinkle the still wet chocolate with chopped nuts. If you are using nuts, dip three or four apricots, then add nuts, and repeat. (The chocolate will be too dry if you wait until you get all of them dipped):

STEP 4:  Add the chopped nuts and dried fruit to the remaining chocolate:

STEP 5:  Stir the fruit and nuts into the chocolate:

STEP 6:  Spread the mixture out evenly on a large piece of parchment. It should be 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch thick:

STEP 7:  Let the chocolate harden fully, then cut it into strips:

STEP 8:  Break up the strips into smaller pieces:

STEP 9:  This is what your finished bark should look like:

STEP 10 (Optional):  Package your finished chocolates in clear treat bags, and add curly ribbon if desired: