Valentines Treats!

James wanted to bring some cute treats in to school for his friends on Valentine's Day, so I racked my brain for something easy that we could do together. Inspiration struck when we were at Chip's Chocolate Factory watching them make their fudge and I spied chocolate covered marshmallows in the display case.

I thought "I can do that!" and "How would we make that valentiney?"

I pondered the problem for a few days and got my answer on a trip to the commissary when I saw a huge display of heart shaped marshmallows and sprinkles. LIGHT BULB!

So earlier today James and I got out all our gear to make our treats.

To make these you need:

long lollipop sticks
1 lb of dark chocolate candy melts (or melting chocolate of choice)
Heart shaped marshmallows
Crisco
paper towel
sprinkles
tall coffee mug (I put this mug into my tiny crockpot to keep the chocolate melted... you can just keep microwaving and stirring if you prefer... but you want it tall to be able to dip your whole stick with)
block of Styrofoam
paper towels


I folded a paper towel up and put a little crisco on it, so I could grease my lollipop sticks. The Marshmallows go on MUCH better and keep their shape when you grease the stick. If you don't, the marshmallows tend to resemble little butts,



which is ok if that's the kind of thing you want to convey... lol... but I didn't think it was *quite* appropriate for Kindergarten, kwim?

I left a little dab of crisco at the top of my stick and spun the stick as I inserted it into the marshmallow.




Much better!!! No Marshmallow carnage on the stick...



I did this for all 4 marshmallows. I only inserted the stick 1/2 way through the last marshmallow so the stick didn't show.

Having an adorable helper putting the marshmallows small to large on the plate for you makes things go so much faster! lol






Once you get all the sticks made, it's time for the CHOCOLATE!!! YUMMY!!

I put my chocolate and a tablespoon of crisco into a tall coffee mug (the easier to dip into) and popped it into the microwave... 1 minute, stir... 30 secs, stir... until all is melted and ready to go. I then put the cup into my small crockpot to keep the chocolate melted.




Dip your stick in the chocolate and then shake/drip off the excess chocolate.







Add Sprinkles! We found it was neater to just dribble the sprinkles directly onto the treats instead of rolling or dipping the treats into the sprinkles... especially if you have an over-enthusiastic sprinkler, lol.




I stuck them into my styrofoam at an angle to compensate for any drips. The styrofoam went into the freezer after each pop to help the chocolate set up.




Finished treats!







I'm just going to pop them into some pretzel stick bags and attach James's Scooby-Doo Valentines to them and then we'll hand them out to his friends at school. I hope they enjoy eating them as much as we enjoyed making them!