What is banana bark?

Banana bark is chocolate bark, but with bananas. Tiktok is back at it, this time with a viral banana bark recipe. Banana bark is a super simple, no-bake dessert featuring – you got it – bananas. Just like most other chocolate bark recipes, it’s super simple to make: melt chocolate, add ingredients, let it set, break it up in to pieces, and enjoy. Banana bark consists of banana slices, chocolate, and other customizable mix-ins and toppings.

How to make banana bark

1. Slice – Peel and slice your bananas. 1/4 inch slices is what I feel is a good thickness. Just try to keep all the slices the same width.
   Arrange – Lay a piece of parchment paper out on a cookie sheet and arrange the banana slices in a neat rectangle.
2. Spread – Take your nut butter of choice and evenly spread it over the banana slices. Pop that into the freezer while you melt your chocolate.
3. Melt – Melt the chocolate in the microwave, in 30 second increments, stirring in between each 30 seconds. If you have coconut oil, stir it in to the chocolate.
4. Pour – Grab the bananas from the freezer and pour the melted chocolate on top, spreading to the edges.
5. Top and freeze – sprinkle on any toppings you desire, then place in the freezer until completely frozen, about 1 hour.
6. Slice and enjoy – When your bark is solid, remove it from the freezer and either do as they do on Tiktok and use your hands to break it up, or use a knife to cut it into pieces. Enjoy while frozen!

Banana bark ingredients

• banana – grab two bananas out of a bunch and you’re good to go. You don’t need giant bananas, small ones will do. Also, get bananas that are just ripe, overly ripe bananas aren’t as aesthetic and they don’t slice as nicely.
• nut butter – most recipes use peanut butter, but you can use whatever nut butter strikes your fancy. You can even just skip out on the nut butter if you want, it’s entirely up to you. I went rogue and used Biscoff cookie butter and it is AMAZING.
• chocolate – chocolate is what makes chocolate bark bark. You’ll need 1/2 cup of chopped chocolate or chocolate chips. Milk, dark, white, anything goes. I used dark, because I love dark chocolate. More on what kind of chocolate to use for banana bark below.
• coconut oil – the coconut oil in the recipe is optional, simply because banana bark is a frozen bark. Typically, coconut oil helps with tempering chocolate, making it set, stay shiny, and giving it a pleasant snap. Coconut oil is solid at room temp, which is why it helps with chocolate solidifying. If you have some in your pantry, go ahead and add it to the chocolate, if not, you can feel free to skip it.

Toppings

This is where it gets fun! Go crazy!

• Try chopped or slivered nuts such as: peanuts, almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, walnuts, pistachios, pecans, really all nuts and chocolate are amazing.
• Dried fruit is also a pro move: coconut, dried cherries, cranberries, blueberries, any sort of chewy dried fruit bits would be amazing.
• Sprinkles or salt are also a fun addition. Sprinkles because who doesn’t love funfetti and flaky sea salt because salty sweet chocolate is ultra addictive.