When I have a chance, I like to make treats for Wednesday trivia nights. I had some free time yesterday so I made some Salted Caramel Bark. The recipe was pretty simple and the results were fabulous. My biggest concern was making sure my new sous chef (Lola) didn't get any of the chocolate dripped on her, as she likes to lay in the kitchen and watch what I'm doing. I gathered my ingredients to get started. I prepared my pan. The directions didn't specify what size baking sheet to line, but I thought 9x13 would be best. Unfortunately, I didn't have a 9x13 baking sheet, so I just used my trusty 9x13 pan. I wiped it with a wet paper towel and the wax paper stuck perfectly. My next step was to unwrap the caramels. I put the caramels in a glass bowl with 2 tbsp water and heated in the microwave for 2 minutes. I have a high powered microwave, so this was all the heat it needed. I stirred it after microwaving and all the caramel had melted. Next, I got to work on melting the chocolate. I don't have an actual double boiler, so I created a make shift one with 2 sauce pans. I added water to the larger saucepan and turned on the heat to get it simmering. I added the dark and milk chocolate chips to the smaller saucepan and held it over the simmering saucepan, so the water didn't touch the smaller saucepan. I stirred the chocolate chips until they were fully melted and glossy. Immediately after melting the chocolate, I added it to the prepared pan. Next, I added in the caramel and using a spatula to swirl it in. I sprinkled it with coarse seat salt and put it in the freezer. I checked it after 15 minutes, but it wasn't quite firm enough. I let it sit for another 15 minutes and it was ready to go. I pulled the waxed paper out of the 9x13 and holding it over the pan, I used my mallet to break the bark into pieces. The parts that had lots of caramel required me to pull them apart a bit by hand. I created two containers of bark and put them back into the fridge until it was time to leave for trivia.

I gave a small container to the owner and bartenders and kept the bigger container to share with the rest of the trivia crowd. It was a hit. It was sticky, but everyone seemed to enjoy the combination of sweet and salty. It was definitely not the prettiest dessert I've ever made, but it was certainly tasty!

The New Austonian