Valentine's Day Hot Cocoa Sticks with Marshmallows

Winter means hot cocoa so we thought we'd share how to make some fun Valentine's Day Hot Cocoa Sticks with Marshmallows. These pretties are all dressed up and make a perfect little gift for kids or your special someone! How sweet would one of these be tucked into a gift basket or placed in your favorite hot cocoa mug for Valentine's Day morning?!

Hot cocoa sticks make great gifts all winter long. They are popular for Christmas so we thought making some for Valentine's Day might be fun. With some pretty mini metallic red baking cups, hot cocoa spoons, tiny marshmallows, our special Valentine's Sprinklefetti™ and some great chocolate you can make a batch of these in no time.

Picking great chocolate will make your hot cocoa sticks taste even better! We selected 3 different kinds of Ghirardelli chocolate bars to use for our hot cocoa sticks. We were very pleased with the tasty results. Make sure when you are selecting your chocolate to choose bars over chips as there are added ingredients to chocolate chips to help them keep their shape during baking.

When my mom and I get together we often make sweets to give to family and friends no matter the time of year. It is something we've been doing it since I was little. She wanted to make some hot cocoa sticks as part of her gift bags this year so we researched a few and found one by dessertdesignlife.com that we adapted for our hot cocoa sticks. We liked this particular recipe since it stated that it has a longer shelf like than others. If you need to make hot cocoa sticks ahead of time this is a good one to try.

Hot Cocoa Sticks Ingredients:

16 total ounces of chocolate, we used Ghirardelli bars:
8 oz semi sweet chocolate
4 oz 60% bittersweet
4 oz white

1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cups confectioners sugar
a pinch of salt
3-5 drops Almond flavoring oil
tiny marshmallows

Other supplies needed:

1/4 cup white chocolate candy melts
disposable frosting bag
hot cocoa spoons
Sprinklefetti Valentine's Day sprinkle mix
12 mini freestanding baking cups

Hot Cocoa Stick Instructions:

Chop your chocolate into small pieces. The smaller the pieces the quicker it melts. Add your chocolate to the top bowl of a double boiler, stir until melted. Once melted if you want your hot cocoa to have a hint of another flavor you can add a few drops of a flavoring oil like we did, it is optional however we enjoyed the hint of almond in the chocolate.

In a separate bowl mix your cocoa powder, confectioners sugar and salt. Sift if there are clumps. Add to the melted chocolate and stir until combined. The mixture will thick. Remove from heat.

Add your chocolate mixture to a disposable frosting bag. Snip off a little of the pointed end of the bag. Fill your mini baking cups 3/4 of the way up. Place the wooden spoon in the center of the baking cup pressing all the way to the bottom of the cup. Sprinkle on some of the tiny marshmallows, enough just to cover the chocolate and press them into the chocolate. You need to work quickly as you want the marshmallows to stick to the chocolate.

After all of the cups have their first round of marshmallows it is time to melt some white chocolate and to add a second layer of marshmallows making them extra decadent!

Melt about 1/3 cup of white chocolate and add to a disposable frosting bag. Snip off just the tip of the bag so you can drizzle the white chocolate onto the marshmallows in the cups and add more marshmallows on top. Once all of the cups have their second layer of marshmallows if you want to add a pop of color and fun drizzle on a little more chocolate and sprinkle with colorful sprinkles like our Sprinklefetti™ Valentine's sprinkle mix.

You can place the hot cocoa stick cups on a tray for a hot cocoa bar or wrap them up in small cellophane bags and close with a twist tie or bakers twine. They are a perfect sweet gift during the cold winter months!

To enjoy your hot cocoa sticks add to 10-12 ounces of hot milk. These make larger hot cocoa sticks since they are made in the mini baking cups and might be too rich if not enough milk is used. Stir for a couple minutes to let the hot cocoa melt and enjoy! These would be great added to coffee too (a suggestion from my Mom)!

Happy hot cocoa making!

~Esther & Shauna

This post was written, styled and photographed by Esther of The Bakers Party Shop. If you share a photo from our post a link must be displayed back to this post and credit given to The Bakers Party Shop. All photos and content are copyright of The Bakers Party Shop & The Bakers Confections, All rights reserved 2016.