Christmas is just a couple of days away and I wanted to share with you an idea for a last minute gift that is very much a gift to the bank too.
A couple of weeks ago I saw this post on Makes and Takes about hot chocolate on a stick and although I’ve seen it in a few parties before, I never done it myself. So I decided to give it a try and make them this year. I wanted to give something extra to the whole idea so when I saw this monogrammed mugs at my local Anthropologie I just knew that the hot chocolate sticks and the mugs were made for each other.
The recipe given by Jane from Makes and Takes is very easy to follow, so easy I made a batch right before making breakfast.
Here is the recipe as written on Makes and Takes
Hot Chocolate Blocks
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- One 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
- 3 cups semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped or in chips (Jane note: I actually used 1 cup 60% cacao chips, 1 cup semi-sweet chips, and 1 cup milk chocolate chips)
- One 4-oz bar unsweetened chocolate (broken or chopped into smaller pieces)
- Wooden or cookie/lollipop sticks
- 8″x8″ pan, lined with parchment paper
Heat the cream and sweetened condensed milk over medium-low heat until it starts steaming, stirring periodically. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes, then put back on medium-low heat and stir with a whisk until chocolate is completely melted and shiny. (At this point you could add some flavoring…vanilla, hazelnut, peppermint, whatever fits your fancy!)
Pour chocolate into prepared pan and spread chocolate as level as you possibly can. Let sit overnight (12 hours or so).
Adding a note here, I used Nestle Toll house Morsels – a bag of the dark and a bag of the chocolate milk (it was a bit over 3 cups); and also used the same brand for chocolate chunks- dark instead of the unsweetened bar.
Jane also used homemade marshmallows and I just went with the store bought ones. 
I followed the recipe and waited 12 hours before I cut the chocolate fudge into squares.
Here is how they looked:
Once they were bagged and tied with a fabric ( I wanted them to have a rustic feel to it so I used fabric I had from the Sock Monkey baby shower instead of ribbon) I placed 2 of them inside the mugs and created a card with directions for the chocolate – used the text from Make and Takes (click here to download the cards with directions) but added a bit of Clemens to it
The result was one sweet gift.
I have to say I loved making it, and the best thing is that I was able to give a little something to the people we care without going over budget.
Gotta love that!!
Here is the result:
So what do you think?
And in case you still have people on your list you can put this together in less than 24 hrs.
I used mugs from Anthro because it was convenient but your local Dollar Tree can be just as good. What matters here is the thought and the effort you put into it.
A sweet idea, just my way of wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas!
For the full post on how to make the Hot Chocolate on a stick visit Jane’s blog Makes and Takes
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