Candy Cane Marshmallow Dipper

 

 We were trying to think of an easy and fairly quick treat to make together the other night. I had seen this idea here for making these candy cane "pops", as they called them, to use with hot chocolate and thought it would be perfect. My kids and I are big fans of hot chocolate. 

Supplies:

-Large marshmallows

-Small candy canes

-Wax paper

-Hot chocolate of your choice

-Rolling Pin

-Chocolate for melting (I used these chocolate chips, but in the future I would use normal candy making melting chocolates)

 

As I frequently mention, I like to see what fine motor skills practice we can get in during our projects and this time I was surprised to note how hard it was for my girls to get the candy canes out of the little packages without breaking them. 

 

We opted to use scissors to open them (which is still fine motor practice, I guess). :) So we unwrapped a  bunch of little candy canes.

 We used a rolling pin to crush a bunch of still wrapped other candy canes.

 We then stuck the long end of the candy cane into a big marshmallow. They liked this step. I was surprised that even my 2 year old could do this step well.

 

We laid out wax paper, put our crushed candy cane bits on a plate and melted our bowl of chocolate chips. I made sure our center was all ready to go before we melted the chocolate because I know how fast that melted chocolate will harden.

 Like I said before, I wouldn't use chocolate chips again. I think I over heated the chocolate because it wasn't smooth after I heated it. Ours got kind of clumpy so we couldn't just dip the marshmallow. We had to sort of "paint" or spread the chocolate on. It was fine because they still thought it was fun.

 Immediately after they spread the chocolate they  rolled the chocolate covered marshmallow into the crushed candy cane bits.

 Ta-da! I thought they turned out pretty cute, even if our chocolate was a little weird.

 The kids loved them and dipped them in their hot chocolate then would eat part of it and then dip it again. I opted to dump my whole thing into the mug and let it melt to add some yummy flavor to my hot chocolate. We put the rest that we made into a baggie and froze them until all the way cooled and hardened and have them ready to use for our next hot chocolate drinks. It was a hit and I would definitely make them again. They would also make really cute neighbor or teacher gifts.