Fruit & nut chocolate shards with popping candy

This week is all about His Majesty Chocolate (or should that be Her Majesty?!). Chocolate Week is definitely a cause for celebration, whether you cook a lush chocolate cake, bake brownies with the kids or just treat yourself with a box of truffles.

The original recipe for chocolate shards appeared in Sainsbury's magazine in October 2014 issue. I have adapted it a bit, but the major inspiration comes from that recipe created by food director Sarah Randall.

Fruit & nut chocolate shards with popping candy
Ingredients:
3 bars of chocolate - two dark and one milk
100g raisins
50g dried mango
a good glug of apricot brandy
30g pistachios
60g pine nuts
2tbsp honey
100g unsalted butter
2tbsp or more of chocolate covered popping candy (optional)

Soak the raisins and chopped mango pieces in apricot brandy (or rum, like in the original recipe).
Preheat the oven to 180C, put the nuts on the baking tray and toast for about 10 minutes.

I soaked raisins and sliced mango pieces in apricot brandy for a couple of hours
The original plan was to substitute macadamia for walnuts, as we are not fans of macadamia. I put 100g of chopped walnuts on a baking tray and in the oven for 10 minutes. I was watching Poldark on BBC iPlayer, and got distracted by basic anatomy. By the time I remembered about the walnuts, they were a beautiful ebony colour. Quick change of plan then. What do I have in the kitchen? About 30g of shelled pistachios and 60g pine nuts, that would do.
I didn't have any coconut cookies, instead I used one of the dark chocolate coconut bars. Waitrose has recently introduced a selection of dark chocolate bars to its 1 range. In this recipe I used Waitrose 1 Indian Ocean dark chocolate with coconut, Dominican Republic Dark chocolate and milk chocolate.

Place the butter, broken chocolate bars and honey in a bowl set over simmering water and keep stirring until the mix melts. Add in the fruit and nuts and mix well.
Pour into the oiled square tray. I have added a layer of foil first in the tray for the ease of taking the chocolate block later. Sprinkle the popping candy over the chocolate mix.

Once cooled, cover the tray with foil and put in the fridge overnight.
Using a large knife, cut the block into shards.

The shards are very creamy and moreish. Just lovely with a cup of tea or coffee.

Adding my recipe to #KitchenClearout linky run by Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews, as I used some odd ends of the nuts' packets.

And it being a chocolate recipe, it fits well with We Should Cocoa linky run by Choclette from Tin and Thyme.