Make this fun Halloween bark recipe for your Halloween party. These easy Halloween treats are perfect for all your party tricksters. Try this recipe for making Halloween chocolate bark for your Halloween party to delight your guests. Plus learn how to choose the best chocolate for chocolate candy bark, as well as tips on melting and tempering chocolate.

Halloween Bark Recipe: How to Make Chocolate Candy Bark

Name: Halloween Bark Recipe
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: candy
Ingredients: 3/4 cup dark chocolate; 3/4 cup white chocolate melting wafers; 3/4 cup orange chocolate melting wafers; Halloween sprinkles; Candy eyes; Candy corn; Reese’s Pieces

October 14, 2020

Make this fun Halloween bark recipe for your Halloween party. These easy holiday treats are perfect for all your party tricksters. Try this recipe for making chocolate candy bark to delight all your party guests this fall. Plus learn how to choose the best chocolate for chocolate candy bark, as well as tips on melting and tempering chocolate.

Halloween Party Ideas

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Not a year goes by that I’m not perusing the aisles of Target the week their Halloween decor hit the shelves. Of course, I always have to see what my friend, Cathy, comes up for her Halloween decorations as well. Cathy always decorates the outside of her home with the most amazing, upcycled Halloween decorations. Every year is different. She scavenges for all sorts of interesting materials and recreates them into truly spooky, Halloween decor. Her lawn is always littered with an exciting assortment of zombie baby dolls and giant, blood sucking tentacles, as well as skeletons and other scary holiday decor.

Cathy’s Halloween parties are as equally amazing as the decorations she crafts for her home. (And I do love a good Halloween party!) Without fail, the inside of her home is as frighteningly delightful as the outside. In addition to making her own indoor and outdoor Halloween decorations, she makes makes and bakes all sorts of wonderful Halloween treats and appetizers for her guests. Meat and cheese trays that look like skeletons splayed open on the table, bread that resembles witches fingers, and the like. And of course the Halloween desserts are equally as fun. While I’m not big on sweets or candy, I do indulge at holiday parties with much exuberance and zero concern for my waistline.

I’m a decent cook, however my presentation is often rough. I’m not the best at making things look pretty when it comes to cooking or baking, regardless of how things taste. However, this year, I really wanted to make a fun Halloween treat that reminds me of my friend’s Halloween decor. A mishmash of elements that pull together into a creepy, yet effortless, Halloween treat. So I settled on making Halloween bark!

Easy Halloween Bark

This Halloween bark is so easy to make. It’s also quite possibly the best Halloween treat to bring a Halloween party. Both kids and adults absolutely love this chocolate candy bark. And, of course, you’ll love how easy it is to make.

My easy candy recipe really is a snap to make. It’s also basically impossible to mess it up, as there’s no absolute right or wrong way to decorate these Halloween treats. While my chocolate candy bark is super simple to make, I do have some tips and tricks for getting the best results. After all, you don’t want to show up at a party with treats that taste like tricks!

Working with Chocolate to Make Halloween Treats

Choosing the Best Chocolate for Halloween Bark

Since this Halloween chocolate bark is mainly chocolate, you’ll want to start with a quality chocolate. It is the difference between a good treat and a delicious treat.

I buy chocolate and white chocolate in bulk. For this recipe, you can use any flavor of chocolate, but I used dark chocolate, white chocolate, and orange colored white chocolate. You can also use milk chocolate or even all white chocolate or a colored white chocolate.

I buy my chocolate wafers for chocolate candy bark on Etsy. It’s higher quality than what you find in the stores, and it really doesn’t cost that much more per pound. Plus there is a wide assortment of colors to choose from if you don’t want to color your own. (And it saves a trip to the store if you’re a busy bee.)

You can use chocolate chips. These are, of course, easier to find and cheaper. They taste good, but they can be more difficult to melt. We’ll talk about some tips to melt chocolate chips below.

How to Color Chocolate for Chocolate Candy Bark

Chocolate is oil based, so you can not use food coloring to color it. As soon as you add a liquid or even a gel food coloring, your batch will turn into a gritty mess. I just buy colored white chocolate wafers if I want colors. I used orange colored wafters for this Halloween chocolate bark.

How to Melt Chocolate for Halloween Bark Recipes

You can melt chocolate with a chocolate melter, like this Wilton chocolate melting pot, in the microwave, or in a double boiler. I have the chocolate melter and love it. I have an insert with a divider for two sections, and it’s so convenient to make this recipe to have two colors.

My second favorite way to melt chocolate is with a double boiler. If you don’t have a double boiler, you can fill a pan half full with water. Then set a glass bowl in the pan so the water covers about half of the bowl. Make sure the glass bowl isn’t touching the pan because you want the warm water to melt the chocolate and not use direct heat.

I don’t recommend the microwave method because you can burn the chocolate. If you do want to use the microwave, heat the chocolate at 20 to 30 second intervals. At each interval, remove the bowl and stir. Then repeat until the chocolate is melted.

How to Melt Chocolate Chips

Melt chocolate chips in a melting pot, double boiler or in the microwave. Chocolate chips tend to get dry, so I add some coconut oil. You’ll need to add 2 teaspoons of coconut oil for each cup of chocolate chips, so you can add 4.25 teaspoons of coconut oil for this recipe, but 4 teaspoons should be plenty.

Coconut oil helps add moisture and keeps the chocolate from drying out. Coconut oil also helps chocolate harden faster and thickens it. You won’t taste the coconut at all, but you can use unrefined coconut oil if you’re worried about the taste.

How to Temper Chocolate

Tempering your chocolate is optional. I don’t do it if I’m serving it to my family, but I will take the extra time to do it if I’m taking it to a party. Tempering chocolate gives it a shiny finish, and it just looks better and more professional. More importantly, it makes the chocolate snap when you break it or bite into it.

You will need to double this recipe for Halloween bark to temper your chocolate because it doesn’t work well with smaller amounts. You’ll also need a candy thermometer if you’d like to temper chocolate when you make Halloween chocolate bark.

To temper chocolate for chocolate candy bark, place two-thirds of the chocolate in a double boiler. Do not let it exceed 120°F for dark chocolate or 105°F for milk chocolate or white chocolate.

Once it has fully melted, remove the chocolate from heat. Then wipe the water off of the bowl. Add the rest of the chocolate slowly, stirring to let the chocolate melt before you add more. Once it’s all melted, let it cool to 82°F.

Place the bowl back in the double boiler Reheat dark chocolate to 88° to 91°F. Heat milk or white chocolate to 85° to 87°F. Remove from the double boiler. Your chocolate is now ready to make this Halloween chocolate bark.

How to Make Marbled Halloween Candy Bark

I went with solid colors for my Halloween bark recipe. However, you can also make marbled candy bark.

To create marbled chocolate bark, simply melt white chocolate and colored chocolate at the same time. Then follow the same directions, as found below, for making Halloween chocolate bark. (The only difference is , you will use white chocolate on the bottom.)

Now drop or drizzle a colored melted chocolate on top of the white. Next, use a chopstick or even the handle of a spoon to swirl through the melted chocolate to create swirls. Finally, top with candy decorations, if desired.

Halloween Bark Ingredients

These are the ingredients you’ll need to recreate this holiday recipe at home:

Dark Chocolate: You’ll use dark chocolate as the base for this holiday candy recipe.
Candy Melts: White chocolate melting wafers and orange chocolate melting wafers are also used. You can use these as a base for the candy bark as well as to decorate the sheets of chocolate you make.
Candy Sprinkles: Just as you would decorate cupcakes, Halloween sprinkles are an easy way to add fun and colorful details to these chocolate treats.
Candy Eyes: Nothing is spookier than candy eyes when it comes to food! Give your party guests the illusion that these easy desserts are watching their every bite.
Candy Corn: While candy corn isn’t everyone’s idea of the perfect Halloween candy, it’s definitely one that’s associated with this autumn holiday. While you can skip this ingredient, it is another option for decorating the chocolate and adding additional flavors.
Reese’s Pieces: Reese’s Pieces, while popular year round, already come in Halloween colors! Use this popular candy to create designs and add more fun flavors.

How to Make Halloween Bark

Follow these directions to make these easy treats for your Halloween party:

1. To make this recipe for Halloween bark, first line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Now melt the dark chocolate using a melting pot, double boiler, or microwave. Pour the melted chocolate onto the parchment paper. Then use an offset spatula to spread to ¼ inch thick.

3. Working quickly, add candy or sprinkles to the top of the melted chocolate. The chocolate will set rapidly, so be sure to plan out what candies and sprinkles you’d like to use beforehand.

4. Once you’ve covered the dark chocolate with decorations, repeat the same process with both the white chocolate and the orange chocolate. Decorate as desired with candy and sprinkles. You can also use additional melted chocolate to create ghost shapes or other designs.

5. Now transfer the baking tray to the freezer. Allow the tray of Halloween bark to sit for 30 minutes.

6. After the chocolate has cooled, remove from the freezer. Then break the chocolate candy bark with your hands. Alternately, you can also use a knife to make small chunks.

This candy recipe can be made ahead of time. You can store the Halloween chocolate bark in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, inside an airtight container.

Yield: About 2 1/3 Cups