Easy Chocolate Date Bark
This Easy Chocolate Date Bark is a delicious dessert or snack that can be made in minutes. While similar to this Chocolate Covered Dates recipe, it’s a great alternative for those with little patience for fiddly tasks. Instead of stuffing dates individually this is simply made all on one tray.
In This Article
Nutritional Benefits
Dates are rich in minerals such as iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and zinc as well as being full of fibre (1). Additionally, they also contain plenty of vitamins like A and K as well as several B vitamins (1). Lots of reasons to include them in your diet regularly.
Dates make a wonderful dessert or snack on their own. Although given they’re so sweet, combining them with a protein like nuts and/or nut butter may help delay their digestion and aid in controlling blood sugar levels (2).
Ingredients – What You’ll Need To Make This Recipe
This recipe uses very basic pantry staples. And if they’re not already in yours they’re easy to find. Aside from the dates, which form the base of the recipe, most other ingredients can be changed to suit your tastes. Use any nut butter or nuts preferred and it’s your choice of milk or dark chocolate too.
- Dates – The glue that holds this deliciousness together. They also make the bark chewy and deliver hints of caramel with every bite.
- Nut butter – any you choose will be fine. I went with peanut butter because it’s what I had on hand.
- Nuts – peanuts or cashews are great, they give this a snickers feel. Again though, anything you have is fine.
- Chocolate – Go with your preference here, milk or dark.
- Coconut oil – This is used to make the chocolate easier to spread once melted. It adds a nice hint of coconut flavour too.
- Salt – Helps to cut through the sweetness of the dates and chocolate.
- Desiccated coconut – This is optional but adds a touch of colour and flavour when sprinkled over the top.
Let your creativity guide you with this recipe. You can mix milk and dark chocolates, add coconut flakes or even more chopped nuts on top. If you do add any other toppings, be sure to add them straight after pouring over the chocolate. This will ensure they stick to it before it’s frozen. And if you need to make a dairy free version, just replace the chocolate with your dairy-free variety of choice.
How To Make This Easy Chocolate Date Bark
This recipe needs 10 minutes or less hands on time. Perfect for those days you’d like a sweet treat with little effort. The trickiest part is flattening out the dates because they can get quite sticky. A tip to help with this if needed is to lay a piece of baking / parchment paper over the top before pressing them down.
- Line a baking sheet with baking / parchment paper.
- Remove seeds from the dates, open them right up and lay them out on the baking tray slightly overlapping with the cut side up.
- Press the dates down so that they slightly stick together as one large piece.
- Pour the peanut butter over the dates and spread it out to the edges. Next, sprinkle the chopped peanuts over the top.
- Melt the chocolate and coconut oil together in a double boiler on the stove or in the microwave. Once runny, pour this over the top of the chopped nuts and gently spread it out to the edges of all the dates.
- Sprinkle over the desiccated coconut if using, followed by the salt and put the tray in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour to firm up.
- Remove the chocolate date bark from the freezer and chop it into chunks. It’s quite sweet, so I cut mine into 20 or so pieces.
- Serve straight away and keep any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.
If the chocolate is still too thick to pour after it’s been melted, add another 1 – 2 teaspoons of coconut oil to help thin it out. It needs to be a pourable consistency, so the dates aren’t pulled apart as the chocolate is spread.
Substitutions And Variations
Any nut or seed butter can replace the peanut butter. The same is true for the peanuts – any nut can be used in their place.
While technically any date could be used for this recipe, Medjool are best because they’re large and have a very creamy texture. As such, I don’t recommend swapping them for another variety.
Want a dairy free version? Simply use your dairy free chocolate of choice.
Tips For Success With This Recipe
I like to use a slightly runny nut butter to make spreading it out much easier.
If you want to make this as fuss free as possible you can just use a crunchy peanut butter and leave off the extra nuts. Again though, look for one that’s slightly runny to make spreading easier.
Storing/Freezing/Make Ahead
Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
Having guests? Make this a day or two in advance and keep it in the fridge ready for them to enjoy when they arrive. It can be eaten straight from the fridge.
FAQ
This will last for many weeks in the fridge, but it will all be eaten before that!
Medjool are the best variety for this recipe because they’re large and have a creamy texture. As such, I don’t recommend swapping them for another kind.
More Dessert Ideas
- Twix Cups
- Coconut Chocolate Slice
- Lemon Curd Muffins
- 4 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
- Easy No-Bake Chocolate Tart
If you try this recipe, I’d love to know. Leave a comment, rate it, and remember to tag @wholenaturalkitchen in your pics or reels on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok!
Easy Chocolate Date Bark
Equipment
- 1 Baking Sheet
- Parchment Paper
Ingredients
- 12 oz pitted medjool dates (350g or 17 dates)
- ½ cup smooth peanut butter (see note 1)
- ⅓ cup peanuts, roughly chopped (see note 2)
- 1.5 cups chocolate buds or chips (milk or dark, whichever you prefer)
- 2 tsp coconut oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 – 2 Tbsp desiccated coconut (optional)
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with baking / parchment paper.
- Remove seeds from the dates, open them right up and lay them out on the baking tray slightly overlapping with the cut side up.
- Press the dates down so that they slightly stick together as one large piece. There should be very few spaces visible between them.
- Pour the peanut butter over the dates and spread it out to the edges.
- Next, sprinkle the chopped peanuts over the peanut butter.
- Melt the chocolate and coconut oil together in a double boiler on the stove, or in the microwave. Once runny, pour this over the top of the chopped nuts and gently spread it out to the edges of all the dates.
- Sprinkle over the desiccated coconut if using, followed by the salt and put the tray in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour to firm up.
- Remove the chocolate date bark from the freezer and chop it into chunks. It's quite sweet so I cut mine into 20 or so pieces.
- Serve straight away and keep any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Gabby Campbell
Gabby is a degree qualified Naturopath/Nutritionist (BHSc Nat) with a love of all whole foods. She started her Naturopathic career in clinical practice before making the move to recipe development and online education – a result of wanting to combat the misinformation that abounds on the internet about food and health. Whole Natural Kitchen aims to transform the way you think about healthy eating by helping you embrace an abundance of nutritious foods while leaving the health fads behind. MORE ABOUT GABBY