If you’d like to make some Easter candy, this Jellybean Chocolate Bark recipe is very versatile. You can make it with any chocolate—dark, milk, ruby, or white.

You can add jelly beans for Easter, and customize the bark for any holiday or special occasion: candy corn for Halloween (photo #2), Red Hots for July 4th, crushed candy canes for Christmas, etc.

You can mix food color into white chocolate to create different hues or use colored confectionary coating, and can top the bark with:

 
You can also mix 1 teaspoon of extract into the melted chocolate: almond, mint, vanilla—wherever your creativity leads you.
 
 
> Chocolate bark history.

> Jelly bean history.

> Chocolate history.

> Candy history.
 
 
ABOUT THE RECIPE & CONFECTIONERY COATING

This recipe, from Taste Of Home, was made with confectionery coating instead of real chocolate. The best-known consumer brand is Candy Melts.

Confectionery coating is imitation chocolate, made with fractionated palm kernel oil and hydrogenated palm oil instead of cocoa butter. The “chocolate” versions use imitation flavors, not real cocoa.

It looks like real chocolate, but we belong to the group that can really taste the difference between confectionery coating and chocolate.

Confectionery coating (photo #3) has many fans. It is less expensive and easier to melt, and Candy Melts comes in 15 colors.

Here’s a taste test” If you don’t like inexpensive white chocolate, your candy may have been made with confectionery coating instead of the real thing.

Here’s more about confectionary coating.

If a recipe calls for the Candy Melts brand or the generic confectionery coating, you can substitute real chocolate in equal amounts*.

The choice is yours.
 
 
RECIPE: JELLYBEAN CHOCOLATE BARK
 
Ingredients

 
Preparation
 
1. LINE a 15x10x1-inch pan with foil and grease foil with butter.

2. MELT the chocolate or candy coating in a microwave, melt; stir until smooth. Spread it into the prepared pan. Top with jelly beans, pressing to adhere. Let stand until set.

3. CUT or break the bark into pieces. Store it in an airtight container.

You can also add a teaspoon of coconut oil, vegetable oil, corn syrup, or shortening to your melted chocolate to get the texture closer to candy melts.

[1] Easter chocolate bark (photos #1 and #2 © Taste Of Home).

[2] Vary the toppings for other occasions, like this Halloween bark.

[3] Confectionery is typically sold in disks, for easy melting. These are from Merckens, a company that sells larger quantities (photo © Merckens Chocolate Melts).