It’s that time again. The time of year I always seem to get the blues. For a Hawaii girl, more than a week of grey skies and rain hits hard. I’m not complaining. After all, we choose to stay in the Pacific Northwest, kind of comes with the territory. But the end of summer was a runaway freight train; dark clouds barreling through the blue skies, thunder and lightening, sideways hail, torrential downpours. Fortunately, I can turn to cold weather comfort foods like hot chocolate to get me through.
These hot chocolate pops are one of my favorite edible gifts. If you have a mega chocolate craving, you can definitely just eat them like a luscious chocolate lollipop. But what they’re really meant for is dunking and stirring into a cup of warm milk, magically transforming it into a swirly cup of rich chocolaty goodness.
Originally I used heavy cream to make the chocolate pops, and stirred them into cow’s milk. Now that I’m on a dairy free diet, I needed an alternative.
Fortunately, high fat coconut milk works really well at making a dairy free chocolate ganache! Just make sure to use dairy free dark chocolate chips as well. It does change the flavor, you’ll now have a coconut chocolate ganache. As if that’s a problem! There’s only one way to improve chocolate, and that’s with coconut.
I’m thinking these will be Halloween treats for some of my fellow Mops leaders, and I’ll make some more in December as Christmas treats for my other mommy friends. You can also give them out as Valentine gifts. This is one edible gift that easily adapts to the different holidays!
Do you have a favorite food that gets you through the yuckier weather in your area?
EDIBLE GIFT HOT CHOCOLATE ON A STICK
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup heavy cream (or coconut milk for dairy free)
- 8 oz bittersweet or dark chocolate chips/chunks
Instructions
- Heat heavy cream (or coconut milk) in a saucepan on medium high.
- When it begins to steam, add chocolate.
- Stir with a spatula until chocolate is completely melted and incorporated.
- Spoon the chocolate ganache into silicone mini cupcake pans. Lick spoon!
- Refrigerate 2 hours.
- Poke lollipop sticks into top of each chocolate.
- Refrigerate another hour then pop the chocolate pops out of the mold and wrap in cellophane bags.
- Keep refrigerated until you’re ready to give them away. They can be kept at room temperature for up to two days, or refrigerated up to two weeks.
Notes
Approximate cost/serving: This is a really affordable gift. The most expensive part really is the gift wrapping! But looking at just the ingredients, it ends up being less than a dollar for the batch, so about 8 cents per chocolate pop!
Vegetarian/Gluten Free: By using coconut milk, you can make this dairy free and vegan. It’s already gluten free.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 137Total Fat: 9gSaturated Fat: 6gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 13mgSodium: 7mgCarbohydrates: 12gFiber: 1gSugar: 9gProtein: 1g
Nutrition information is an estimate only.
Yum! Cannot wait to make these.
Double Yum YUM!
These look super yummy. I’m thinking of doing as you suggest and make them as gifts. What do you think the shelf life on these would be? So I know how early in advance I can make them.
Just about 2 days unrefrigerated, or 2 weeks refrigerated. I usually refrigerate them in their wrappers, and try to give them away cold. Then I make a little tag that says “Refrigerate within 24 hours and use within one week.”
These look super tasty. I’m thinking of doing as you suggest and build them as gifts.