Dragon-Scale Hot Chocolate on a Stick
Fun, easy winter favorite with a kick!
I grew up in New York State so my childhood memories are full of snowy adventures. And nearly every one of those memories ends with hot chocolate in the kitchen. Sometimes, if someone was feeling ambitious, there’d be the magical alchemy of old fashion hot cocoa made on the stove top. Sometimes it would be about warming up as fast as possible and involved nothing more than hot milk and a convenient packet.
It didn’t matter to me then, as long as it had marshmallows and chocolate and was so hot I had to slurp it, it was comfort and home and family to me.
Of course, the Fairy Tale Life version has a dash of adventure!
So besides the fact that EVERYTHING is better when delivered on a stick, this hot chocolate contains a bit of spice in the form of cinnamon and a pinch of cayenne. And just to make it clear that it brings the heat, it’s topped with a cute dragon-scale marshmallow.
If you want to skip right to the recipe, click HERE
Makes 8 servings
Ingredients:
8 oz Chocolate chips
¼ cup Cocoa power
¼ cup Confectioners sugar
½ tsp Cinnamon** (or to taste)
⅛ tsp Cayenne** (or to taste, if you don’t like spice, leave out, or just at a pinch)
1 pinch Salt
8 Marshmallows-regular size
Writing Icing Gel
Other Items:
1 Mini-Muffin Pan
8 Lollipop or popsicle sticks
Pair of scissors
Instructions:
Hot Chocolate Sticks
First, melt the chocolate in microwave, 30 seconds at a time and stirring after each round. When it looks mostly melted with some lumps, take it out and stir until smooth.
Next, sift cocoa powder, confectioners sugar, salt, cinnamon* and cayenne* into melted chocolate and fold in carefully.
*Or, you could add in a different flavoring, like peppermint at this point, if you prefer. Then fold chocolate gently to combine all ingredients.
At this point, the chocolate had cooled and started to harden a little, so I put it back into the microwave for 15 seconds. Make sure not to overheat if you do this.
Spoon mixture into mini-muffin tin. This filled about 8 spots on the tin for me. Tap to remove air bubbles and smooth out. Add sticks and put in freezer or refrigerator to harden. (Check periodically while waiting to harden to make sure the sticks stay upright.)
While waiting for the chocolate to cool and harden, work on the dragon scale marshmallows.
Dragon Scale Marshmallow
Using a pair of scissors you don’t mind getting sticky, snip a row of small V’s around the marshmallow in alternating pattern.
Once you have your army of dragons, add a dot or stripe icing gel to each scale.
When done, slide the marshmallow onto the stick and voila:
Dragon-Scale Hot chocolate On a Stick!
To Make Hot Chocolate
To serve, heat 6-8 oz milk in a mug and drop in the stick, stirring until melted. Top with the marshmallow and enjoy!
Click HERE for a printable version of the recipe
A couple of notes:
*I definitely taste the spice but don’t find it spicy. However, I do like heat in my food so you may want to adjust the level of cinnamon and cayenne to your taste
*I used a metal tin and the chocolate stuck to the sides. I put the tin on top of my toaster over while warming something else and they popped out easily after a few minutes. Running a hair dryer over the bottom might have the same effect. If you have silicone tray, that might work better to start, however.
*None of the mugs in my house are small, so that results photo is actually about 14 oz of milk with TWO sticks melted into it. (There’s only one marshmallow because I couldn’t help myself and ate one while the milk was heating. Oops!)
*Let me know if you try variations with other flavors and how it worked out!