How to make chocolate dinosaur bark, a fun and easy Easter treat

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.

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?

You’ll love these posts too!

How to make DIY dinosaur fossil eggs

How to make simple dinosaur pancakes (and how not to)

Where dinosaurs roamed: 14 best places to see real dinosaur tracks and footprints

Münchehagen Dinosaur Park – Germany’s real Jurassic Park

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