Monster Cookie Bark

It is very rare that I make up my own recipe for something other than pizza.  I tend to follow written recipes religiously.  However, I was having trouble the other day deciding between making monster cookies or some type of chocolate bark.  So it dawned on me...why not combine the two and make monster cookie dough inspired bark?  So that's what I did!  And it was great!

Ingredients:  Semi-sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, M&M's, peanut butter chips, chopped pecans, raisins and Rice Crispies.

Temper the chocolate.  "Temper" is just a fancy way of saying melt the chocolate slowly so it doesn't burn.  Start with about 1/3 of the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl.

Microwave it for a minute and stir it well.  Then add the rest of the chocolate in several batches and microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring after each interval until the chocolate is melted.

Each time you add cold chocolate it brings down the temperature of the melted chocolate and keeps it from burning.

When it's "tempered" it will look smooth and shiny like this.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and turn out the chocolate.

And spread it out to the edges of the parchment paper.

Sprinkle it with the Rice Crispies.

Then the M&M's.

Then the raisins, peanut butter chips and nuts (and more Rice Crispies if you think it needs to be extra crunchy like I did).  Let it sit at room temperature to harden, about 2 hours or so.

Once it has hardened, break it up into pieces and dig in!  This was so fun!!

Copy and paste the recipe below into Word for a printable version:

Monster Cookie Bark

Semi-sweet chocolate
Milk chocolate
M&M's
Peanut butter chips
Chopped pecans
Raisins
Rice Crispies

Melt the chocolate in the microwave, adding a little chocolate at a time and heating it in 30 second intervals.  Spread the melted chocolate out onto a parchment lined baking sheet.  Sprinkle the remaining ingredients evenly over the chocolate.  Allow it to harden at room temperature.  Break into pieces.