Soy Nut Bark

When I was in college I loved going to Wegmans.  If you don't know about Wegmans... well, it's basically the Disneyland of grocery stores.  And it's affordable.

I used to go to the natural foods bulk section and buy soy nut bark.  It was heavenly.  I went back to visit friends not long after graduation and popped by Wegmans to get some bark.  It was gone.  I asked about it but they didn't know what I was talking about.

Years later a Wegmans in the Philadelphia area.  (It's totally awesome, by the way.)  No soy nut bark there either.

After eight years of wondering whether or not soy nut bark is a figment of my imagination I have finally come to the realization that I can make it myself.

I had never made bark candy before, but it didn't seem all that complicated.  Melted chocolate with roasted, salted soy nuts.

I went to Wegmans to buy my ingredients, and check one last time that they weren't hiding it from me in their candy section.  (They weren't.)

You can buy roasted, salted soy nuts in the bulk foods section of your local health foods store.  They also come pre-packaged.

Please save yourself from the chocolate candy-making wafers.  They are full of partially hydrogenated oils and have way too many ingredients to really taste good or be good.
(If I were in England I would, without hesitation, use Cadbury Dairymilk.)

Soy Nut Bark
by New to the Table
Yield - about 1/2 a cookie sheet

Ingredients

• 1 - 11.5 oz bag Ghirardelli milk chocolate baking chips
• 2 cups roasted, salted soy nuts (approximate)

Start by lining a cookie sheet with parchment paper, making sure to leave a bit hanging over the sides for grabbing.  (Because I wasn't filling the whole sheet I rested jars along one edge to stabilize the paper, but that ended up being unnecessary.)

Put chocolate in a heat-proof bowl and rest atop a saucepan full of simmering water.  

(I realized I didn't have heat-proof mixing bowls, so I used my Mikasa vegetable bowl.  Beautiful and functional.)

Stir, scraping the sides frequently, until the chocolate is melted and very smooth.  Scrape the chocolate onto the parchment paper and spread to about 1/4" thick.

Quickly top with your soy nuts.

Soy nuts don't have a lot of weight to them so it helps to gently pat them into the chocolate. 

Put your baking sheet into the refrigerator for about an hour so the chocolate can set.

Once cooled, remove from parchment paper and break into pieces.

Enjoy thoroughly.

Store bark in an airtight container in the refrigerator for several days.