Santa's Kitchen 2011: Dark Chocolate Bark Balls

So, I spent yesterday coated in molten chocolate and sugar and all things sweet. It was my annual holiday candy and sweet making day. Here's what it looked like:

Ingredients and recipes at the ready

Phin was a huge help. He chopped 7 lbs of chocolate - dark and white..

One of the many batches of molten chocolate

  

Phin also helped coat the Bark Balls with white chocolate

Peppermint bark, setting up

Finished white and dark chocolate bark balls

Finished peppermint bark

The final tally: 4lbs of Peppermint Bark, 2 batches of White Bark Balls, 2 batches of Absurdly Easy Fudge (which I didn't photograph somehow), and my innovation this year, 1 batch of Dark Chocolate Bark Balls. I also baked a loaf of bread, but that's another post.

White Bark Balls are basically a peanut butter rice crispy treat coated in white chocolate. They were a runaway hit last year. So, this year I thought: why not try them with nutella instead of peanut butter and dip them in dark chocolate instead of white? I played around with the recipe a bit to get them to the right consistency and, thus, the Dark Chocolate Bark Ball was born.
 

Dark Chocolate Bark Balls 
1 1/2 cups Rice Krispies
1 cup Nutella
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
4 tablespoons butter or margarine, at room temperature
12 ounces dark chocolate (for coating)


Mix Nutella, sugar and butter in a bowl until combined (I used a hand-held mixer). Add in Krispies and mix until combined (I used my hands). Form into balls and chill for a few hours until set.  Melt dark chocolate in a double boiler or microwave until smooth. Coat balls with chocolate and put back in fridge til hard. Enjoy!

The only thing that didn't get made is 2 batches of peanut brittle, which I hope to get to on Friday. I thought it was a bad idea to start playing with molten sugar toward the end of the day when I was starting to feel wiped out. (Sugar burns are horrible!)

Do you have any Christmas baking or gift making left?