Chocolate dinosaur bark is a fun and easy Easter treat that you can make with or for your little dinosaur fan. It’s like normal chocolate bark with a prehistoric twist – dinosaur fossils, dinosaur eggs and, of course, ichnites. Your little dinosaur fan will love setting the scene and helping their dinosaurs leave their footprints. It’s a simple gift for Easter, works well as a party favour and is even a good activity to do when your child is stuck at home sick or with school closures.
Rexy’s Recipe Rundown
Title: Chocolate dinosaur bark
Food: Prehistoric chocolate bark, complete with ichnites
Dinosaur: Any that you have in toy form
Best for: Easter, dinosaur-themed party favours and whenever your little dinosaur fan is stuck home sick or with school closures.
Ease: 4.5 out of 5 – we struggled a little to hit the right level of chocolate softness/solidity for our dinosaur footprints
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What is chocolate bark?
For those unfamiliar with the concept (I’d never heard of it until a couple of years ago), chocolate bark is a sheet of chocolate that is usually covered with nuts, dried (or fresh) fruits, sweets, and even more chocolate. For our chocolate dinosaur bark, we use biscuit crumbs, pretzels, candy eggs and more chocolate. When it is finished, it can often resemble the bark on a tree – thus the name.
The inspiration for this chocolate bark dinosaur bark
We were looking for some dinosaur-themed Easter chocolates to make – without having to buy another dinosaur chocolate mould (though these are very cute) – when we stumbled upon a video for dinosaur bark. Our LDA was excited to try it.
We tweaked the recipe a little to use readily available ingredients (candy rocks are not available in Germany and coloured candy melts are only available online).
This chocolate dinosaur bark recipe is the first of three fun recipes that your little dinosaur fan will be itching to try. Make sure you check out the others too: our dinosaur ice cream is a must-try!
Besides, we decided that chocolate dinosaur bark, together with our dinosaur dance party (also coming soon!), was a fun way to showcase some of what our LDA has learnt about fossilised dinosaur footprints during and since our visit to the Dinosaur Park in Münchehagen.
Tips for making this dinosaur bark
- Don’t make your chocolate sheet too thin. Normally this is not an issue, but yours must be thick enough for dinosaurs to walk across it and leave indented footprints.
- We struggled a little to get the timing right. Our chocolate did not want to set (it was too warm in our house). When I put it in our pantry, our coldest room, it set and became too hard for the dinosaurs to leave footprints. We had to put the chocolate near the heater again for it to soften enough. If yours is not setting, try putting it in the fridge for a few minutes, but not so long that the chocolate hardens. The chocolate should have the consistency of soft fudge, but not be runny. If your chocolate is too hard to leave footprints, try sticking the tray in the oven on the coolest setting for a couple of minutes.
- If you prefer, you can use candy melts instead of chocolate. I’d love to try and make this with rainbow footprints one day.
- Work out where you want your dinosaur trackways to run and try and keep them free of rocks and sand.
- Use wheat biscuits or butter cookies for the sand, depending on what you prefer. We used Oreos for our dirt and just scraped out the cream filling.
- You can easily add other elements (e.g. candy rocks, dried fruit or small pieces of brownie to resemble rocks or place the crushed pretzels in a circle to form nests and add more candy eggs).
- Choose your dinosaurs carefully, based on their footprints. We used a large T-Rex, a Brachiosaurus and a smaller Triceratops.
Great for dinosaur birthday parties
This chocolate dinosaur bark is great not just for Easter, but also for birthday parties. Serve it as a sweet dish or put it in cellophane bags for an easy guest favour.
While we’re on the topic of dinosaur-themed birthday parties: the white chocolate covered pretzel “bones” also make a fun and easy dish to serve at a kid’s birthday party. You can also put some in small bags as part of your guest favours.
How do you store chocolate dinosaur bark?
In general, chocolate dinosaur bark will keep for two to three weeks in an airtight container in the fridge. If you keep the homemade bark at room temperature, it will keep for about 5 days.
Dinosaur bark
Simple and fun dinosaur bark: make these chocolate dinosaur trackways with your little dinosaur fan for Easter, party favours or just to learn about dinosaur footprints.
Ingredients
- 400g dark or milk chocolate
- 100g white chocolate
- 4 wheat biscuits
- 4 chocolate biscuits
- 10 pretzels
- small candy eggs
Instructions
- Melt your dark or milk chocolate using your preferred method then spread in a thin layer over a tray lined with baking or greaseproof paper.
- Place your wheat biscuits in a ziplock bag, let the air out and zip it closed then bash it with a rolling pin to form sand. Sprinkle the sand as desired over the chocolate, leaving a could of stripes free to form dinosaur trackways.
- Repeat this procedure with the chocolate biscuits to form dirt.
- Take half of the pretzels and put them in their own ziplock bag. break them into small pieces to resemble small fossils. Sprinkle these artfully around the chocolate.
- Place the eggs strategically in places where the combination of biscuit sand and dirt look like a nest.
- Place the tray with the chocolate somewhere cool but not cold and allow the chocolate to start to set but is still soft.
- Melt the white chocolate and allow it to cool a little. Dip the remaining pretzels into the white chocolate to cover them and form dinosaur bones. Place them around the chocolate slab.
- Take your dinosaurs and walk them across the chocolate where the trackways are, pushing their feet into the still soft chocolate to leave clear footprints. Set the tray somewhere cool and allow the chocolate to harden completely.
- Carefully spoon the white chocolate into the footprints to leave more visible trackways.
- Break the chocolate bark into pieces and enjoy!
Notes
Choose 2-3 different dinosaurs to show different footprints and sizes.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 10 servings Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 503Total Fat 22gSaturated Fat 11gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 9gCholesterol 31mgSodium 557mgCarbohydrates 68gFiber 3gSugar 31gProtein 9g
Nutrition information is a guide only as it will depend on the specific products and brands you choose to use for this recipe.
Looking for an easy prehistoric treat this Easter?
Simple and fun to make, this chocolate dinosaur bark requires you to play with your food – as part of the cooking process, of course! Follow our instructions and add your own prehistoric details for the perfect dino-themed Easter sweet that your little dinosaur fan will love making, gifting and eating.
Don’t forget: this chocolate dinosaur bark is not just for Easter! It is great as a party favour or even a party activity, and is a lovely, low-cost distraction for a child who is stuck at home sick or because schools are closed.
What will you put on your dinosaur bark?
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