Creative ‘baking’ with a 3 way Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bark recipe

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I hadn’t realised when I agreed to do this Cadbury Dairy Milk post for Collective Bias®, that today was National Baking Day.  My challenge was to make something creative with Cadbury Dairy Milk. Although we didn’t officially ‘bake’, I think we can claim to have been creative with our Three way Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bark recipe

When I was little, Cadbury chocolate buttons were one of the only ‘sweets’ we were allowed, so it’s the first chocolate I’d go for out of choice.  I think your taste in chocolate is informed by what you were given as a child, and you’ll always turn back to that even if you try others.

Having said that, I wouldn’t usually cook with Cadbury Dairy Milk (I do have a Cadbury chocolate recipe book though), so after a bit of thought (ok, not much thought really), I decided we’d try making a chocolate bark recipe, and maybe a chocolate refrigerator cake.  Both would be great for getting N involved, and we’d be able to try some different toppings.  I used Pinterest to get some ideas as well as checking out a couple of online searches.

Once I’d worked out a vague shopping list, N and I went to Sainsbury’s for our normal weekly shop.  I don’t usually do the confectionery aisle to try and avoid temptation, so was interested to see what new items were around.  I always look at the recipe cards at the entrance and picked up a couple of nice looking recipes to try out.

Before we can get to food, I always check out the clothes in case there’s anything new in I fancy.  N enjoys clothing sections as there’s good places to hide amongst the hangers – yesterday he took fancy to a ladies white jacket and a Mike the Knight t-shirt.  Might need some guidance on the choices!

Of course Cadbury Dairy milk is now all over the place in stores – chiller cabinet for desserts, biscuits, and not forgetting the ad hoc displays wherever is suitable.  You can see the shop we did here.  I’d not seen the Cadbury Dairy Milk biscuits before so picked those up as we’d use those in the refrigerator cake (2 biscuits didn’t make it and were delicious).

We always Fastscan in Sainsbury’s as it’s quicker to get round the store and through checkout with N in tow; for once there was no queue at the fast scan till, so we were out in no time at all.

As always N was keen at the beginning of a cooking session, dragging up a chair to stand on and wanting to help mix.  I now have a running commentary from him as to what ingredients are going in.

Chocolate refrigerator cake

The refrigerator cake is easy to make and a good way of using up all those odds and sods in the baking cupboard.  To the melted Cadbury Dairy Milk we added some melted dark chocolate (the OH prefers dark to milk) and butter, mini marshmallows, digestive biscuits, the Cadbury Dairy Milk biscuits, glace cherries and sultanas.  But you could add in whatever you fancy – nuts are also great and make it a little less sweet.  Then it was a case of putting it into a greased dish, levelling it out and chilling it in the fridge for as long as required.

They never look particularly great, but taste lovely and are a great treat.

Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bark recipe

For the chocolate bark recipe it was more melted Dairy milk with a touch of dark chocolate as we didn’t have quite enough to fill the tin.  Spread it over a cling film lined tin.  A bit of melted white chocolate drizzled over, then time to sprinkle in whatever you like.  

N had got bored and wandered off by this stage.  I was expecting him to have enjoyed using the sprinkles we bought, but it did mean that I could make the chocolate bark neater and more ordered than it would have been with a 2 year old sprinkling galore.

I did mini chocolate beans with honeycomb sugar pieces, lightly salted pretzels and mixed dried berries.  Breaking them up seemed like sacrilege, but they look great and would be great wrapped in a basket as gifts.

So using Cadbury Dairy Milk was a success, and given the promotions that seem to be so widespread for normal branded blocked chocolate, I’d probably buy more of it for cooking than buying proper cooking milk chocolate.

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Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client.