Chocolate and Dried Fruit

If you are looking for quick easy chocolates to make try these delicious chocolate disks with dried fruit.

The French call it Mendiant, which means scraps of chocolate with dried fruit and nuts, and it’s typically served around Christmas.

I am a huge dark chocolate fan and love Ghirardellis’s 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate, but use your favorite chocolate.

Other items to add are nuts and seeds, add some large Maldone sea salt flakes, which will give it a great contrast in flavor. I made a few varieties and the two I really liked are in this post.

Add fresh herbs like rosemary or other flavors. I’ve had spicy chocolate so add in some dried peppers, or add some pepper flavored spices, test 1 to be sure you like the flavor before adding spice to the whole batch,

Choose your favorite dried fruit, any combination will work well. The bright colors make it look like shiny jewels, they are tender to bite into and the chocolate will snap just a bit to give these a great texture.

Prep all the dried fruit by slicing it into bite-sized pieces so you will be able to fit the items you want on the size “disks” you’ll be making.

If you’re cutting sticky fruits like pineapple and mango, dust the fruit or your knife with powdered sugar so they will separate easily once cut.

Some favorite items to use:

• Banana chips
• dried pineapple
• dried mango
• dried pineapple
• dried apricots
• dried cranberries
• dried or dehydrated apples
• pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds)
• add nuts like slivered almonds, cashews, walnuts, pecans, or peanuts.

There are lots of dehydrated fruits available like strawberries, raspberries which have pretty bright colors.

I have used dried blueberries as well with good results.

You can make chocolate bark by pouring the chocolate onto a rolled edge sheet pan, placing the fruit on top, and then allowing it to cool completely at room temperature. Then cut the chocolate into squares or triangles.

WHEN MELTED CHOCOLATE:

Tempering the chocolate is bringing it to the proper temperature so the chocolate will dry firm and not melt in your hand easily or dry and be soft and bendable.

It should be well melted, hot, and easy to stir and drizzle off a spoon easily.

Popular ways to heat chocolate and in a double boiler, in the microwave, or in a food processor I have used all three methods with great success.

Using a Microwave – At 20-30 second intervals mixing in between to ensure the chocolate melts evenly

Using a Double Boiler – with a stainless or glass bowl over a pot of simmering water (that does not touch the pot) melt the chocolate while stirring it in the bowl as the hot water heats from the chocolate from underneath the bowl. In a food process the heat that is created while mixing the chocolate will melt it, and the food processor will run for many minutes. I most often use the microwave when doing a small batch, I use a double boiled when I’m making more and find it easiest to heat a little more if needed since the water stays hot while I work.

Check out my post on Chocolate Covered Fruit HERE.

For added deliciousness: you can make a batch of toffee and pour the toffee onto the bottom of a rolled edge baking sheet, then add chocolate, then fruit for a delicious fruit topped toffee with chocolate.

Making toffee is just one more additional step by boiling butter and sugar… YUM! Check out my post on TOFFEE here.

These rosemary and cranberry disks are a simplified version of the toffee I made last year that I find irresistible…

My favorite toffee recipe is this Rosemary Cranberry Toffee, it’s salted, and sweet, and the fresh rosemary tastes fantastic with the dark chocolate and buttery toffee.