Chocolate Snowmen [Recipe]

I invented this recipe after being told we couldn't bring our chocolate dreidels to my daughter's winter party at school, because they didn't want anything religious at the party. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out!

Ingredients

Each Snowman Uses:

• 1 Thin Pretzel Stick
• 1 Regular Marshmallow
• 1 Mini Marshmallow
  
• 1 Bite size 3 Musketeers Bar
• Some milk chocolate chips or melting wafers (probably there's something much better about the melting wafers, but I've found that the chips work fine and are easier and cheaper)
  
• Some white chocolate chips or melting wafers

Other Equipment:

• A cookie sheet or baking pan that will fit in your refrigerator lined with ...
• Parchment paper (waxed paper or foil will do, but parchment paper is really nice and non-stick)
• A very narrow straw (if you're totally obsessed you can buy "cocktail straws" at the supermarket) or a toothpick (optional)
  

How To

1. Put the parchment paper on the cookie sheet, and make sure there's a space in your refrigerator big enough to put it when you'll need to later.
   
   
   
2. Unwrap your 3 Musketeers Bars (note that if you're going to be making a big batch of these, it's a good idea to unwrap everything first since it's a pain to keep having to melt the dipping chocolate)
   
   
3. Put the white chips or melting chocolate into a very small microwave-safe bowl and melt them in the microwave. It takes a while to figure out how long you need to do this, so the first time you should have some patience. Essentially, you should zap them for 5 or 10 seconds, take them out of the microwave and stir with a spoon. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Note that the chips will get soft enough to stir LONG BEFORE they appear to be melting. Don't let them get too hot (and be sure to check the temperature before letting little fingers do the stirring!) When you stir it and it looks like melted white chocolate, you're ready for the next step.
   
   
   
4. Dip one of the flat sides of the regular marshmallow into the melted white chocolate, wipe off the excess, and then use the melted white chocolate to "glue" the marshmallow onto the bite-sized 3 musketeers bar. Place the combination (bar side up) on your cookie sheet. Repeat with the rest of your big marshmallows/bite-sized bars. You may have to reheat the melting chocolate a bit and restir depending on how many you are making. Once your sheet is full, stick it in the fridge until the melting chocolate has solidified and the marshmallows are really stuck to the bars (10 minutes should be more than enough)
   
   
   
5. While the marshmallows/bite-sized bars are chilling, prepare your pretzel sticks: break them into roughly 1.5-inch long pieces.
   
   
   
6. Remelt the white chocolate / topping it up with chips if necessary. Then, holding the marshmallow/bar combo by the marshmallow, dip the bar part into the white chocolate to coat the whole bar (our chocolate isn't really deep enough in this picture) and then stand it up (marshmallow side down) on your cookie sheet. "Stick" a mini-marshmallow on top of the center of the bar to form the snowman's head.
   
   
7. Now comes the tricky part: push two pretzel sticks into two opposite sides of the bite-sized bar to form the snowman's arms. The snowman tends to tip over at this point if you're not careful -- it's much easier to do this if you have three hands: While one person holds the bottom of the big marshmallow for support, the other person can push two pretzel sticks into two opposite sides of the bite-sized bar (simultaneously) to form the snowman's arms. Then carefully put your creation back onto the cookie sheet so that it doesn't tip, and neither do any of its friends. Once you've processed all the pieces, carefully put the cookie sheet back in the fridge to let everything solidify again.
   
   
   
8. Once your snowmen are pretty solid, remelt the white chocolate chips or wafers. Take one (unmelted) milk chocolate chip, dip the bottom in the melted white chocolate, wipe off the excess, and "glue" it to the head of a snowman for his hat. Then back in the fridge they go.
   
   
   
9. Now you're going to draw the buttons and the face. There are two ways to do this. An adult can do the whole thing using the ziplock piping technique below, but the buttons are really easy for a kid to "draw" so you might want to do that first. Remelt the chocolate chips if necessary, and then using the narrowest straw you can find (or the widest toothpick, or possibly even a spare pretzel stick) dip the straw in the melted chocolate and then touch it to the snowman in 3 places to make 3 buttons.
   
   
   
10. Put some dark chips in a small zip-lock bag and melt them in the microwave, using the same 5-or-10 second technique, but this time instead of stirring in between, you should just kneed the bag a bit. I usually leave the bag open, and just put the chips at the bottom of the bag.
    
    
    
    
11. This part is just for grown ups: once the chips in the bag are melty, squish most of the air out of the bag, zip it shut, and squish the chocolate away from one of the two bottom corners of the bag. Then snip as tiny a hole as you can in that corner. You're going to use this as a "pastry bag" to pipe a face on your snowman. You may want to practice making faces and just get used to this piping technique by doing some drawing (that you'll just toss later) on waxed paper. Be careful not to smudge the buttons while you make the faces!
    
    
    
12. One final chill in the fridge, and voila, you're done!
    
    
    
    

Chocolate Dreidels [Recipe]

This recipe is based on a chocolate dreidel recipe from a Martha Stewart magazine that was sent to me by my friend Emily, who, together with another friend Kelly, started me on this candy & cupcake making extravaganza ... Martha used a marshmallow, but they look so much cooler and are much more interesting to adults if you use a bite-sized candy bar instead.


Ingredients

Each Dreidel Uses:

• 1/2 a Thin Pretzel Stick
• 1 Hershey Kiss
• 1 Bite size 3 Musketeers Bar
• Some milk chocolate chips or melting wafers (probably there's something much better about the melting wafers, but I've found that the chips work fine and are easier and cheaper)
  
• Some white chocolate chips or melting wafers

Other Equipment:

• A cookie sheet or baking pan that will fit in your refrigerator lined with ...
• Parchment paper (waxed paper or foil will do, but parchment paper is really nice and non-stick)

How To

1. Put the parchment paper on the cookie sheet, and make sure there's a space in your refrigerator big enough to put it when you'll need to later.
   
   
2. Unwrap your Hershey Kisses & 3 Musketeers Bars (note that if you're going to be making a big batch of these, it's a good idea to unwrap everything first since it's a pain to keep having to melt the dipping chocolate
   
   
   
   
   
3. Put the chocolate chips or melting chocolate into a very small microwave-safe bowl and melt them in the microwave. It takes a while to figure out how long you need to do this, so the first time you should have some patience. Essentially, you should zap them for 5 or 10 seconds, take them out of the microwave and stir with a spoon. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Note that the chips will get soft enough to stir LONG BEFORE they appear to be melting. Don't let them get too hot (and be sure to check the temperature before letting little fingers do the stirring!) When you stir it and it looks like melted chocolate, you're ready for the next step.
   
   
   
4. Dip the flat side of the kiss into the melted chocolate, wipe off the excess, and then use the melted chocolate to "glue" the kiss onto the bite-sized 3 musketeers bar. Place the combination (kiss side up) on your cookie sheet. Repeat with the rest of your kisses/bite-sized bars. You may have to reheat the melting chocolate a bit and restir depending on how many you are making. Once your sheet is full, stick it in the fridge until the melting chocolate has solidified and the kisses are really stuck to the bars (10 minutes should be more than enough)
   
   
   
5. While the kisses/bite-sized bars are chilling, prepare your pretzel sticks: break them into roughly 2-inch long pieces.
   
   
   
6. When your kiss/bite-sized bar combos are done chilling in the fridge, take them out and push one pretzel stick into the center top of each bite-sized bar. Note that the pretzel stick pictured on the right is really too large, but my assistant insisted on using them that way. When you push the sticks in, make sure you apply pressure to the part of the pretzel closest to the candy bar, otherwise your pretzel is likely to break. You can push them until you meet some resistance when they hit the kiss. Finish inserting all the pretzels before moving on to the next step.
   
   
   
7. Top up your bowl of melted chocolate with some more chips (we really don't have enough in the picture to the right), remelt/stir/melt etc. Then, holding the pretzel stick, dip each "dreidel" into the melted chocolate so that the top of the bite-sized bar is covered, hold it over the bowl for a minute to let the excess drip off, and place it on your parchment-paper-covered baking sheet. Repeat for the rest of the dreidels, remelting as necessary. Once you've got all of them dipped, put them back in the fridge for another 10 minutes or so until they are all solid
   
   
   
8. Put your baking tray of solid dreidels on the counter.
   
   
   
9. Put some white chips in a small zip-lock bag and melt them in the microwave, using the same 5-or-10 second technique, but this time instead of stirring in between, you should just kneed the bag a bit. I usually leave the bag open, and just put the chips at the bottom of the bag. The white chips seem to melt at an even lower temperature than the brown ones, this happens pretty fast.
   
   
   
10. This part is just for grown ups: once the white chips in the bag are melty, squish most of the air out of the bag, zip it shut, and squish the chocolate away from one of the two bottom corners of the bag. Then snip as tiny a hole as you can in that corner. You're going to use this as a "pastry bag" to pipe Hebrew letters on your dreidel. You may want to practice making letters and just get used to this piping technique by doing some writing (that you'll just toss later) on waxed paper.
    
    
    
11. Write Nun, Gimel, Hay, and Shin on the sides of the dreidels using the white chocolate. Only label three of the four sides of each dreidel (don't try labeling the back, there's no point, it looks beautiful on a serving plate without it anyway, and I didn't have much success when I tried). Again, really this is an adult or at least much older kid part of the project. Put the dreidels back on the baking sheet, and then into the fridge to chill one last time.