Chocolate Bark is the easiest and most loved dessert out there and yet not many people give it a shot of making.

So, we are sharing this Patriotic Bark recipe which is a must have dessert for your red, blue or white themed parties.

To start with it is such a simple and a no-bake recipe that even kids could make it which is actually a great idea. Spread the chocolate out and then let the kids go to town decorating while you work on something else. Amazing!

All you will need is:

Line your baking sheet with wax paper and set aside for later use.

Put White Candy Melts in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 1 minute and 30 seconds stirring every 20 seconds at 40% power. If the Candy Melts are not melted completely then heat further at stirring every 15 seconds until completely melted.

Heat the Dark Chocolate Melts in a separate microwave-safe bowl for 1 minute and 30 seconds stirring every 20 seconds at 40% power. If the Candy Melts are not melted completely then heat further at stirring every 15 seconds until completely melted.

Spread the white chocolate on the prepared baking sheet and use a spatula to smooth it out until 1 cm thick.

Drizzle patches of dark chocolate over the white chocolate and use a pointy object to create swirls.

Sprinkle the chopped M&M’s on the chocolate and press a bit to make the candy stick to it. Repeat the same with whole M&M’s and Star Sprinkles.

Place the sheet in the freezer for around 20 minutes or until hardened. Break the Bark into pieces and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Caution:

Check the packaging of products to be aware or any allergens or Gluten Free Status.

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The sweetest thing that we can ever get by dissolving sugar in water or milk is “Candy”. The only thing that affects the textures and types of the candies differently is the temperatures and the amount of sugars. The hotter the temperatures the harder the candies, the lower the temperature the chewer the candy. The Arabic word Qandi, which means ‘made of sugar’ is what originated the modern sweet term that we all know as Candy.

History and Bible both suggest that people used to prefer Honey as sweet treats. Ancient Arabs, Chinese and Egyptian people used to have candied fruits and nuts in honey and that was the initiation of modern-day candies. Another one of the oldest candies is the Barley Sugar which was made with barley grains. The Aztec and the Mayan people used cocoa beans for their drinks. In the early 15^th century, Spanish explorers discovered the cacao tree and brought it to Europe. English and American people used to eat boiled sugar in 17^th century.

In the 19^th century, hard candies like peppermints and lemon drops became popular. Joseph Fry made the first ever chocolate bar in 1847 using the bittersweet cacao beans. While in 1875, Henry Nestle and Daniel Peter discovered the first milk chocolate.

The History and Origin of Candy

The origin of candy dates to the old Egyptian times when they used to coat their fruits and nuts in honey. Greeks used to candy their fruits and flowers with honey too. The modern candies were made in 16^th century and in the 17^th century the home-based candy making turned into an industry.

Some Facts About Candy:

Over the past 100 years candies have become extremely popular and over a million types of candies have come into being.

• People spend around $7-8 billion on chocolates in one year.
• The candy sales are at the highest during the Halloween times and during this holiday season people spend around $3 billion on candies and chocolates.

So, the sweet affair of candy-making is centuries old and still has a lot of influence on not only the kids but on the people of all the age groups.

The only thing that attracts the kids more than fun rides at a carnival or in an amusement park is the cotton candy. Its stringy and fibrous texture makes it a unique treat amongst the other sweet treats.

People have been making sweets out of sugar for thousands of years, but cotton candy came into being only recently. Prior to the modern-day cotton candies, there used to be sweet gold rings resembling molten glass in appearance and were developed by European Chefs. They could be shaped into anything and used to sell mainly because of their interesting shapes. Cotton Candies were made when the sugar industry advanced.

The first electrical cotton candy machine was invented in 1897 by William Morrison and John C. Wharton, the candy makers from Nashville. They introduced the cotton candy to the audience at 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair as Fairy Floss for the first time. They managed to keep the patent of the machine to themselves for a year and then started selling the machines to local and neighborhood candy stores. There have been improvements in the design of machine and to increase reliability, because early cotton candy machines rattled and broke down constantly, but the concept remained the same. In the 1920s fairy floss was renamed to Cotton Candy.

Due to the lack of automated machines that could produce enough products for widespread distribution prior to the 1970s, cotton candy was only produced on a small scale. Then, in 1972, a cotton candy machine for automatic manufacture and packaging was patented. It allowed the mass production of cotton candy. Tootsie Roll of Canada Ltd., the world’s largest cotton-candy manufacturer, makes a fluffy stuff, fruit-flavored version of cotton candy.

Now, cotton candy is available in many different flavors including banana, raspberry, vanilla, watermelon, and chocolate. Both artificial and natural flavors may be used to produce these flavors.

The National Cotton Candy Day is celebrated on December 7 in the USA.

The historians have been trying to figure out the whereabouts and signs of origin for this interesting sweet treat that we call a Lollipop.

Lollipops are made with hard candies and is attached to a stick kind of thing so that it can be licked or bitten. According to history, this kind of candy making was used a lot of times before coming to the modern avatar.

This first appearance of the lollipop comes from few thousand years ago in the archeological findings that confirmed that our ancestors used honey as a preservative to other more easily spoiled food. For easier access to the meal, they stick a piece of wood to the honey, or preserved fruit, nuts or other food and consumed it by licking and biting. As the time went, limited amounts of honey and very low production of sugar almost destroyed this tradition of our ancestors, but all of that changed in the 17th century when sugar became more plentiful. Street vendors all across London quickly found a use for this long discussed candy, and started selling manually made “lolly pop” in large quantities (according to the linguists, lolly meant “tongue” and pop meant “slap”, making a lollipop known as “tongue slap”). One major difference between this old English “lolly pop” and modern versions is that old recipe demanded the candy to be soft, rather than hard candy.

A lot of people seem to believe that the shape of candy cane has a religious meaning. It is believed that the red colored stripes on the candy cane represents the blood of Jesus and white stripes are representatives of the purity of Jesus. The three rather fine stripes are believed to represent the Holy Trinity. While the shape of the letter “j” is considered to represent the name of Jesus. The solid texture symbolizes the rock-solid foundation of a church and the peppermint flavor is believed to stem from the herb called hyssop.

Anyways, the candy cane is now a traditional symbol of the Christmas holiday. Candy canes are available in different shapes, colors and flavors.

The original candy cane was made 350 years ago. Now, candy canes symbolize the Christmas holiday season and are even used to decorate the Christmas Trees. Initially, the candy canes were not made in the shapes of canes rather they were straight, white in color and flavored with sugar only.

Story has it that in 1670, the cane shaped candy became historical when a choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany bent the sugar-sticks into canes to appear as shepherd’s hooks. The children who attended the ceremonies were given white candy canes. Later, this became a popular tradition and eventually it became a traditional practice at the American and European Church gatherings.

A lot of people seem to believe that the shape of candy cane has a religious meaning. It is believed that the red colored stripes on the candy cane represents the blood of Jesus and white stripes are representatives of the purity of Jesus. The three rather fine stripes are believed to represent the Holy Trinity. While the shape of the letter “j” is considered to represent the name of Jesus. The solid texture symbolizes the rock-solid foundation of a church and the peppermint flavor is believed to stem from the herb called hyssop.

Anyways, the candy cane is now a traditional symbol of the Christmas holiday. Candy canes are available in different shapes, colors and flavors, but the red and white peppermint candy cane still remains the classic favorite among candy canes.

The people from the Aztec and Mayan times used to drink chocolate as their favorite drink. A Spanish conqueror then brought the drink back to Spain in 1529. It soon became a special amongst the Spanish Royal people for many years before becoming common throughout the Europe, largely known as “Hot-Chocolate”. Three centuries later chocolate was first used as non-liquid confection in England.

We still do not know who invented the concept of chocolate being up for eating, but in 1847 Joseph Fry discovered a way to mix cocoa powder, sugar and cacao to create a paste to be pressed into a mold. The bar that came out of it was a success. People seemed to enjoy eating chocolate as much as they loved drinking it. The early eating chocolate bars were made of bittersweet chocolate. The Fry’s chocolate factory, located in Bristol, began producing the Fry’s Chocolate Cream bar in 1866.

In 1849, John Cadbury made a similar bar but by the standards of the modern world neither of these bars would be considered palatable or long-lasting. Later in 1875, Henry Nestle, a producer of evaporated milk, and Daniel Peter, a chocolate maker, came up with a more palatable bar of milk chocolate that could be stored for longer period.

In 1879, Rodolphe Lindt began adding cocoa butter back to the processed cocoa to make a bar that would hold it hardened shape and would melt n the mouth.

Milton S. Hershey installed the first ever automated chocolate machinery in his Lancaster factory and produced the first American-made milk chocolate bar in 1900. During this decade over 220 products were introduced, including manufacture of the first chocolate Easter Egg in UK in 1873 and the Fry’s Turkish Delight in 1914.

In the early-20th century chocolate and candy bars production grew most rapidly. In 1900 the Hershey Company produced the first wrapped chocolate bar, the Hershey bar, which is still produced. A lot of candy bars developed in that era still exist in relatively unchanged form.

During the first half of the 20th century in the United States alone 40.000 different candy bars appeared on the market and this was the decade that was the high point of the candy bar industry.

Today candy bars are manufactured and consumed all over the world and produced to local tastes and environmental conditions.

We have never come across something as delightful as a warm and old-fashioned candy shop. It is kind of a magical moment when we spot the jars filled with colorful and delightful candies or trays of freshly made chocolates coming out of the freezers.

The moment that the smell of the freshly made confections hit us, we are taken on a journey of delight and we still travel back in time to our childhoods when these treats were our favorites.  Well today, candy shops sell more than just sweet treats, they are more about bestowing pure joy upon anyone who walks through their doors.

If you are planning on visiting a candy shop anytime soon and are unable to decide as to where you should go next, we have you covered. Go ahead and check these amazing candy shops out for your next sugar-fill stop:

• Big Top Candy Shop (Austin, Texas)

Located at the iconic South Congress Strip, the Big Top Candy Shop brings you the ultimate candy shopping experience. It is fun, delightful and old-fashioned. Studded with a Soda Fountain, this spot stocks every kind of candy that you can ever dream of. From good old-fashioned classics to modern day trendies, they have it all. You are sure to find plenty of fun surprises in this colorful wonderland.

• Shane Confectionery (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Formed in 1863, the Shane Confectionery is America’s oldest candy store. The moment that you in through the beautiful structure and design, it gives the vibes of stepping back in ages. Breathtaking design displays, workers in old-timey dresses, and some delightfully exquisite chocolates make the shop a treat for the mouth and the eyes. On a day in the fall if you ever pay a visit, be sure to try their historical drinking chocolates too.

• Sweet Mickey’s (Seattle, Washington)

At Sweet Mickey’s, you will discover something special. You might fall for the handmade fudge, or maybe you will find yourself obsessed with their fabulous selection of licorice. Vintage candies are everywhere, free samples are abundant, and the staff is extraordinarily kind. Any visit here will surely brighten your day.

• Economy Candy (New York)

Although Economy Candy is a small candy store, but it is packed with every candy we can ever think of. A staple of the Lower East Side since 1937, this store will make you feel like you have discovered a hidden treasure of sweets. From old-fashioned candies to international favorites to some great bulk deals, you never know what fun surprises you might end up taking home with you.

• The Candy Store (San Francisco, California)

The Candy Store is a San Francisco gem. The walls are lined with jars of old-fashioned candies that will make you feel almost nostalgic. Some customer favorites include gum drops, candy cane caramels, malted milk balls, and green tea Kit-Kats. It is impossible to come out of this store without a bag of exciting goodies.