Red and Green Holiday Bark

Red Green and Holiday Bark

By Allison Collins

This recipe takes a holiday staple – cranberries – out of the can or sauce bowl and off the tree, pairing the dried berries with festive green pistachios and dark chocolate.

Red and Green Holiday Bark is simple to make and uses few ingredients, but looks elegant enough to give as a gift. And, while fresh cranberries are known for their tart flavor (early Native American names for the fruit translate to “bitter” or “sour berries,” according to a 2013 National Geographic article), the sweeter dried berries complement the rich bitterness of good dark chocolate.

According to a 2016 Martha Stewart Living article, Americans eat roughly 400 million pounds of cranberries annually, “20% of which are consumed during the week of Thanksgiving.”

Beyond being bright, shiny and crimson-skinned, cranberries’ connection to the holiday season makes historical sense. The antioxidant-rich berries are available through the cooler months and, unlike most fruits, keep well. Native to North America, the cranberry variety associated with contemporary traditions grows abundantly throughout New England and the Pacific Northwest. That, and they’ve long been versatile.

“Native Americans ate cranberries as fresh fruit, dried the fruit and formed them into cakes to store and made tea out of the leaves,” the National Geographic piece notes. “The Inuktitut of eastern Canada used the cranberry leaves as a tobacco substitute. Cree boiled the fruit and used it to dye porcupine quills for clothing and jewelry. Chippewa used cranberries as bait to trap the snowshoe hare.” The berries, the article continues, are also “thought to help prevent heart disease” and were used by Native Americans as “blood purifiers, a laxative and … for treating fever, stomach cramps and childbirth-related injuries.” “The Wampanoag tribe used cranberries for a variety of things, including dye, medicine and food,” the Martha Stewart Living piece echoes.

Break cooled bark into random, jagged chunks.

Though early colonists were slow to avail themselves of the berries’ many uses, they did make note of them. The National Geographic piece states: “Colonists (called them) craneberries, for the way the flower, produced in June before the fruit grows, resembles the head and bill of a sandbill; fenberries, for the fens—an antiquated word for bogs—where cranberries grow; and bearberries, for the bears that were, apparently, often seen snacking on them.”

Though it’s debatable whether or not cranberries featured on the mythic Thanksgiving table of 1621, this cranberry-studded bark will look lovely on your holiday table this year.

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1. Crushed pistachios, chopped dried cranberries and a sprinkle of pink Himalayan sea salt give this bark a festive look and a balanced sweetsalty taste. 2. Add in the butter just as the chocolate chunks begin to melt. 3. Stir the melted chocolate until smooth and shiny. 4. Pour the melted chocolate onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet for easy removal later. 5. Sprinkle poured chocolate with chopped cranberries while just beginning to cool, but not yet hardened. 6. Add sea salt before chocolate sets, but not while it is still warm, or the salt will melt.

Ingredients:

12 oz. high-quality dark chocolate chips or chunks 2 tbsp. unsalted butter ½ c. pistachios, shelled and chopped ½ c. dried cranberries, roughly chopped 1 tsp. pink Himalayan sea salt Gold sprinkles or food-grade gold leaf (optional)

Recipe:

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Melt chocolate pieces in a double boiler, or in a large glass bowl placed over a small saucepan of boiling water (see Tips).

Add in butter as chocolate melts and stir until smooth and glossy.

Remove melted chocolate from heat. If using a large bowl, be sure to wipe any condensation from the bottom so no droplets get into the melted chocolate while pouring. While still warm, pour melted chocolate onto prepared baking sheet. Allow to cool slightly.

Before chocolate hardens, top with dried cranberries, chopped pistachios, Himalayan sea salt and gold sprinkles, if using.

Once chocolate has hardened, scatter gold leaf flakes, if using.

When everything is set, crack finished bark into chunks and store in an airtight container or wrap for gift-giving.

Tips:

• Consider placing the parchment-lined baking sheet in the freezer before pouring on the melted chocolate. • If making a double boiler with a bowl and saucepan, be sure to use a glass bowl much larger than the saucepan, so the bowl sits above the boiling water and not in it and boiling water cannot splash out. • This recipe makes roughly 20 pieces of bark, depending on the size of the pieces, but can easily be doubled or tripled for gift-giving.