Transform those cake crumbs or last bits of cake into an amazing chocolate bark!
Dreaming Of Food
Do you dream of food? Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night inspired to go make something that you dreamt about? See that happens to me a lot. I’ve always been a very, very vivid dreamer. Always in color and I always remember them in great detail.
Now I’m not one to analyze dreams but often I dream of new recipes, ways to improve existing ones and so forth. Since my dreams are so vivid and “real” I will wake up from one in the middle of the night, turn on the light, and write it down in a book beside my bed. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done this. And what’s even more awesome/borderline freaky is that 90% of the time what I write down, all sleepy-eyed is pretty accurate measurement/ingredient-wise.
This dish is one of those that kind of ‘came’ to me. I went to bed craving cake and chocolate. Well in my dream I was in a kitchen and I was being shown how to make chocolate from scratch. In the same building was a bakery.
After my lesson, I went into the bake shop and they were getting ready to discard cake scraps. Well, they had made this luscious chocolate sheet cake and for some reason, they made one too many. Since they were going to be closed for 2 days they were going to throw it away. I asked to take it home and they gladly obliged.
As I returned to the chocolate place my mentor (no clue who it was) inquired about the cake. After telling my story I decided I had to freeze the cake and then cube it in order to take it home. I think I only had a purse and planned on putting the cake cubes in there (along with my wallet and keys). Don’t ask as it was a dream! LOL
A little later in the dream, as we were cleaning up I grabbed my cake out of the freezer however I slipped on my way over to my table and the cubes went up and into the air and fell in a tray of chocolate. I went to apologize as I had “ruined” the batch but then when I saw what I had ‘created’ by accident I immediately smiled. I ran back to the bakery, ‘stole’ some sprinkles, and added them to the cooling chocolate. Of course, my mentor was swearing at me (in a language I didn’t recognize).
Somehow we flash-forwarded a bit to where the chocolate was hardened and everything was set. I immediately cut it up and gave them a piece. Now they started praising me in French (this I understood). The next thing I knew my alarm clock was going off for work and a new recipe was born! Out came the notebook and I started writing away. Needless to say, this was a TOTAL win!!!
It was as if the “Dream Police” wanted me to catch this! I literally could not wait until I got home to make this! However, I worked really late and didn’t have the time or energy to make a cake, let it cool, freeze it, and so forth. While I don’t sleep much, I still need a good 4 hours a night. So unfortunately I had to wait until the weekend to make this.
FINALLY, it was Saturday. I got up super early and put the cake in the oven. Truth be told, this cake was made and cooling on the rack by 7 am. I know, crazy right?! But trust me, I was a girl on a mission and this recipe was just begging to be created. Seriously the dream laid it all out for me!
The cake was cool enough to flash freeze – meaning I placed the entire cake, unwrapped in the freezer to allow it to freeze solid.
I ran out for a bit to run some errands while the cake was in the freezer. After running my errands I raced home. I unloaded my stuff and got to melting the chocolates.
Once I poured the chocolates I had a little bit of time to cube up the cake and put the frozen nuggets of awesomeness into the chocolate love. Once the chocolate cooled a bit and became not quite firm I then added the sprinkles and drizzled a bit more over top of the exposed cake pieces. I didn’t want to submerge them for fear of them getting soggy AND well honestly, you wouldn’t see them. To me, seeing the cake bits encapsulated by the chocolate is just as important as the taste! Remember, we also eat visually!
Once I finished decorating them I had to let it rest… and rest.. and rest for like 47 years/an eternity/why can’t you be done now as my glaring at you pan-of-chocolate-love should freeze upon my unspoken command. Yeah, have to work on that glare some more *wink*. Now I could have put this in the fridge to cool faster but chocolate is funny at times if you put it in the fridge as it can get that white film on it. Since I didn’t want to take any chances I let this rest for a good bit until it was hard as a rock.
Now my concern with this is that the cake pieces that were exposed, would be hard/dry. I’m happy to report.. NOPE! I think the fat in the chocolate actually helped to keep the cake moist without being crumbly or hard. Now I did keep it in an air-tight container once I cut it and also hid it from myself (yeah, that doesn’t work too well in case you’re wondering if that works… you still end up finding it somehow! LOL).
Now I have a bunch of other flavors of this that I’ve created so stay tuned for more flavors! If you have a flavor request then please by all means comment below!
Sprinkle Chocolate Cake Chocolate Bark
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 2-3 hours of cooling
- Yield: 3-5 cups
- Category: chocolate bark, chocolate snacks, leftover cake, snacks, sprinkles
- Method: no bake
- Cuisine: chocolate bark, chocolate snacks, leftover cake, snacks, sprinkles
Ingredients
- 2 cups milk chocolate
- 2 cups dark chocolate
- 1 9×13” baked chocolate cake
- 1 cup chocolate sprinkles
Instructions
- Cut or break the cake up into 1/2” chunks.Place all but 2 cups of the chunks on a parchment lined baking pan.Place the pan in the freezer (uncovered) and freeze for 2 hours or until the cake chunks are frozen. Line a 15×10” jelly roll pan with foil. Lightly spray.
- In a double boiler over simmering water (not touching the top pan) melt the chocolate until smooth and creamy. Pour all but 1 cup of chocolate into the pan. Gently spread even. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
- Press the frozen cake chunk pieces into the chocolate in the pan. You can put in as little or as much as you want. Just be sure to leave some room in between the pieces for the chocolate to set. Drizzle on the remaining melted chocolate. Take the remaining 2 cups of cake chunks (the stuff we reserved) and crumble it up into small pieces. Sprinkle that over top of the bark. Next sprinkle the chocolate sprinkles.
- Allow to cool completely before cutting – several hours at room temperature or at least 1 hour in the fridge. Store in an air tight container. I kept mine at room temperature.
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