How to make date bark, TikTok's healthy sweet snack

The nutritious recipe, popularised by Lina Jabbari, aims to champion Middle Eastern staple

The 'no-bake' recipe uses Medjool dates. Photo: @thathealthjunkie / TikTok

Creative recipes are taking TikTok by storm.

After feta fried eggs and Barbie pasta went viral, it's a sweet snack called “date crunch bark” that is doing the rounds.

Lina Jabbari, author of the ebook Sweet, is behind the new social media sensation and uses Medjool dates to create a “crunchy, chewy, creamy, sweet and salty” snack.

“If you haven't had a date bark before, that is because I invented it,” she says in a TikTok clip posted last week.

The idea, she adds, is to create a healthy, homemade snack that is also fairly cheap to make.

The bark has five ingredients: Medjool dates, peanut butter, almonds, dark chocolate and flaky salt. Those allergic to almonds use other nuts, seeds or granola instead.

It is also straightforward to make. The first step is to flatten the dates on parchment paper and layer the peanut butter and almonds on top. Melt the chocolate and spread it on top of the crust-like flattened dates. Put it in the fridge until all the ingredients stick together and the chocolate hardens, giving a bark-like texture.

Since Jabbari's post, many other content creators have attempted to make the snack. Videos with the hashtag #datebark have accumulated 8.4 million views at the time of writing.

New York food blogger Samah Dada shared her version of the snack, swapping the chocolate bar with Butterfingers for a different flavour profile.

In the caption, she wrote: “OMG, this is the best no-bake dessert ever.”

Other flavours of the snack include coconut flakes, Snickers, pistachios and Reese's peanut butter cups.

The viral recipe also triggered some TikTok users to comment on how “underrated” dates are.

Jabbari is of Iranian descent, and often shares Middle Eastern-inspired dishes on her social media.