Chocolate Granola Bark

Earlier this week a small group of ladies from our iZōsh group met together to watch and discuss a portion of the Half the Sky documentary.  I’d already seen most of the documentary, but I learn so much from being with these other women, and watching parts of it again reminded me of a world that’s so far away from my own.  It makes my heart heavy, but I also find it keeps me grounded and helps me shape a better perspective on life.   “Chocolate and Chat” was the title of our evening and each of us brought a fair-trade chocolate bar to share.  Our collection was impressive.  I do try to buy fair-trade whenever I can because it empowers small farmers and artisans to improve their own livelihoods by building sustainable businesses; it also connects us with other cultures and gives us the opportunity to directly support their economies.  And goodness, there are so many great varieties of high-quality fair-trade chocolate out there.

I melted my favorite fair-trade dark chocolate and smoothed it over a thin sheet of granola bark for this crisp mix of oats, seeds, nuts, and chocolate. The inspiration came from Tieghan’s recent Chocolate Quinoa Bark post, which you should take a look at because her photos will make you want to drop whatever you are doing and go make chocolate bark instead.  No stirring for this granola, you want to press it tightly in the pan to bind it all together and achieve that gratifying crunch.  A couple things about the ingredients- there’s a bit of milk powder which may sound strange at first, but it helps with the binding and also helps the texture to be a bit chewy and crunchy at the same time.  Although it will work with maple syrup, honey is a bit stickier and also helps with the binding.  A light dusting of shredded coconut and flaked salt gives it a finishing touch.  Once it’s fully cooled, have fun breaking it up into irregularly shaped pieces and enjoy.