Easy Christmas Bark Recipe

Today I have my work Christmas party and as part of my contribution I made Christmas Bark. It's a super easy recipe that I found on Pinterest and adjusted slightly to fit my taste so I thought I'd share it with all of you in case you are looking for something really easy to bring to your holiday party this year.

Here's what you will need:

Baking Pan (I used a cookie sheet)

Tin Foil

Chocolate Chips (3 cups)

Shortening ( 2 Tbsp)

Pretzels (I purchased the mini pretzels and crushed them up)

M&Ms

Christmas sprinkles

**Note: You can really include anything in the bark. The original recipe I found had peanuts, but I don't like peanuts mixed with chocolate (I know I'm weird!) so I didn't include them. You could certainly include different candies other than M&Ms this is just what I used!**

First, I lined my cookie sheet with tin foil.

Ready to get started.

I took my three cups of chocolate chips (I had a little bit over the three cups, but I just used an entire bag of Nestle chocolate chips and it all fit on the baking sheet.

I poured these into a microwaveable bowl and heated the chocolate up in one minute increments. After two minutes I just did a final thirty seconds to finish melting the chocolate. You'll want to stir each time and you'll know it's done when the chocolate is smooth.

The length of time will depend on your microwave so keep an eye on your chocolate!

Next, add in your shortening and microwave in ten second increments until smooth. Mine took 20 seconds and it was good to go!

Next,  pour your chocolate onto your cookie sheet and start adding your extras.

I used red and green M&Ms.

These are the mini pretzels I used.

These are the sprinkles I used. 

One of the tips I read was to make sure to press firmly down on everything that you put in the chocolate otherwise it would not stay when it firmed up. I pressed down on the M&Ms and pretzels and some were hidden inside the chocolate as well. I didn't press on the sprinkles though since they were so small it would've taken me forever.

Then it's time to let the bark firm up! I placed it in the fridge for two hours. 

Here is the end result:

Once the bark is firmed, just pull it apart into a bunch of smaller pieces! 

Overall, a super easy recipe!