Better-Than-Fruitcake Bark ~ nobody loves fruitcake, but every everybody flips for this chocolate bark loaded with dried fruits and nuts! Make this easy homemade candy your signature gift this holiday season!

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This is one fruitcake that won’t get re-gifted!

This holiday bark is over the top, just like its namesake, but there are no Brazil nuts, no creepy green maraschinos, no prunes or lemon peel. Just the good stuff.

A whole host of gorgeous dried fruits and nuts is sunken in to a layer of pure white chocolate that sits on top of another layer of dark chocolate. This would be a sumptuous food gift, and it takes no effort to make. The biggest trouble will be choosing your fruit and nuts. I like to go with an many colors and textures as I can find.

How to melt chocolate in the microwave

I like to use a glass measuring cup to do this because the glass holds the heat and helps melt the chocolate, and the spout makes it easy to pour the chocolate out.
Chocolate chips work fine for melting. They actually work well because they are already in small pieces, so they don’t require a lot of time to melt, and the less exposure to heat, the less problems you’ll have. Of course you can use fine bar chocolate, too, but chips are less expensive, convenient and often on hand. So for 1 batch of bark, you just need to pick up a couple of bags of chips and you’re good to go.
Microwave your chocolate for 1 minute, then stir.
Microwave in further 15 second increments, stirring in between, until the chocolate is smooth and glossy. Toward the end, let the heat of the chocolate itself melt the remaining bits.
Don’t risk over heating your chocolate or it can seize up.

This is where the fun begins. Assemble a mix of your favorite dried fruit and nuts. No duds, just the good stuff as you define it.

Fruit I use in my fruitcake bark

I used apricots, golden raisins, cherries, pineapple, cranberries, pistachios, macadamias, pecans, almonds, red walnuts, hazelnuts, and cashews. Load it up, after all that’s in the spirit of fruitcake.

Roasted nuts have much better flavor and crunch

If your nuts are raw, roast them on a dry pan in a 350 degree oven for about 10 to 15 minutes, watching them carefully and shaking the pan every now and then. You can even use salted nuts it you like the sweet and salty combination.

Whatever your combination of fruit and nuts, you’ll want approximately a cup, or a little more, to sprinkle over the top layer of your bark. You can go as heavy or a light as you want with these. The more colorful and varied in texture, the better. I left the pecans, pistachios, cherries and cranberries whole for variety.

After the top layer of white chocolate has hardened, either at room temperature or in the refrigerator, you can leave the bark whole and package it that way, or cut or break it into pieces. If you like making, eating or giving chocolate barks, check out these other recipes for Cherry and Hazelnut, Peppermint, and my all time favorite, White Chocolate Toasted Almond.

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Whether you make this for dessert, as a gift, or just to have around the house for the holidays, you’re getting a lot of bang for the buck. Chocolate is often on sale these days, so grab a few bags next time you see a good deal. You probably already have a bunch of the fruit and nuts on hand. If not, Trader Joe’s has a great selection, and great prices.

Way, way better than fruitcake, don’t you think?