Orange & Cardamom Dark Chocolate Bark Recipe

Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) is one of the worlds most loved spices! Where would Christmas breads and pastries and Indian and south east asian food be with out this delicious carminative herb?

If you’ve never seen cardamom in it’s whole form, it’s a collection of seeds inside a little pod. There are three types of cardamom: green, black and red. Green cardamom pods are the most popular and easily found in the bulk section of the grocery store. Cardamom is in the same family as ginger and turmeric and is native to India, though it’s now grown in other tropical places around the world.

Cardamom and orange is a classic combination. It’s earthy and floral while also being bright and citrusy. They blend really well with dark chocolate, which lends a nice balancing base note.

Why use dark chocolate? Dark chocolate is rich in antioxidants, flavonols and potassium. Plus it’s lower in sugar which is a very good thing for your liver and maintaining healthy blood sugar levels.

All food jargon aside, it’s just so darn delicious!

Cardamom & Orange Dark Chocolate Bark

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of dark chocolate chips (at least 65%, if you can find 100% even better!)

• 2 tsp of cardamom powder

• 1 tbsp of dried orange peel

• zest of one orange (preferably organic)

Method:

• Melt chocolate in double broiler stirring in figure 8 until all the chocolate is melted. Remove from the heat.

• Stir in 1 tsp of the cardamom powder and the orange zest.

• Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper

• Pour the melted chocolate mixture on to the parchment paper, making sure to scrape out as much of it as possible from the pot.

• Using a spatula spread the chocolate out to 1/4 thick. You can go thinner but it tends to break into pieces if you go thinner.

• Sprinkle the remaining cardamom powder on top and evenly spread out the orange peel.

• Allow to cool for an hour or more until the chocolate has completely hardened.

• Eat with in a week . (It will be gone in a day though!)

Want to try other herbal chocolate barks? Grab all my recipes.