Hot chocolate spoons

Hot chocolate spoons setting in silicone cases

It was my mum’s 70th birthday party at the weekend and I decided to make little table gifts for everyone.

I drew inspiration from the fabulous Holly from GBBO with her hot chocolate on a stick idea over at Recipes from a normal mum.

It’s essentially a large mass of chocolate, studded with marshmallows and set onto spoons or sticks and then melted into a large mug of steaming hot milk.

It’s been so cold I thought ultra luxe comforting drinks would be universally appealing.

So how do you make them…

For a really special look, I used pretty teaspoons in Kings Design courtesy of the fantastic Cutlery and Catering. By some stroke of luck, it turned out the cutlery at Soulton Hall where the party took place, was exactly the same – spoooooky!

If you’re on a tighter budget you could use some wooden stirrers from a coffee shop.

You need a stack of silicone fairy cake cases and lots and lots of chocolate. I opted for a decent cooking chocolate with a 70% cocoa content.

I wanted to achieve a deep flavour that’d feel like a real treat. I also wanted it to cope well with being melted and set, so I didn’t buy the cheapest on the block. I bought 2.5kg, but ended up using 2.2kg to make 32.

I’m a big fan of melting chocolate in short bursts in the microwave – so my essential Lakeland microwave saucepan did a blinding job here. The pouring spout made it a dream to pour the melted chocolate into the moulds.

You need some patience once the choc is in the silicone cases. It took them at least two hours to be set enough to plunge the tips of the spoons in without them capsizing.

The best approach is to just keep squeezing the silicone cases and monitoring how firm they are getting.

As soon as the spoons are in you can press your little marshmallows onto the surface to decorate. You could add some white chocolate sprinkles too which would look lovely.

The scent of chocolate in our house was quite intoxicating – I felt like I smelt of it for days afterwards!

I left the cases of chocolate to firm up overnight, then in the morning I slipped them out of their cases and packaged them up in cellophane bags with curling ribbon and instructions.

Hot chocolate spoons on the table at mum's party

Can’t believe my mum is 70 – makes us both feel old to be honest! Her party was absolutely lovely – lots of family and friends.

Matthew dressed up in his fire kit and carried mum into the party to everyone’s delight.

And then the biggest surprise of all – my mum’s partner announced they’d got engaged – gobsmacking moment but utterly gorgeous news 🙂