Chocolate Candy Sticks

I wanted to make some edible chocolate candles that I found online, and while these chocolate candy sticks would work to make them (I did stick some wick in one to test it out but it didn't burn long), I found just making chocolate sticks were great on their own! Here is how to make tasty chocolate sticks with whatever toppings you like best! I found milk chocolate (and even the vanilla candy coating/chocolate) with freeze-dried raspberries made for a really tasty chocolate candy stick treat! They reminded me of the Fruity Chocolate Bark I made a few years ago or the Fruity Caramel Apples. I also found the cinnamon drops to be a surprisingly tasty combination.

Please use this method to make a variety of tasty combos!

Instructables 321

Ingredients:

• Chocolate or White Chocolate of choice - I prefer to use Candiquik as I don't usually have any issues melting and pouring it whereas I always have issues with actual chocolate :P
• Toppings ideas - the smaller, the easier this will be
• Freeze Dried Fruit - the raspberry freeze-dried fruit was my favorite topping
• Cereal Marshmallows - these are a little big unfortunately for the mold I got, but can still work
• Mini Dehydrated Marshmallows - I wanted to try these but couldn't find them, I think I ran out
• Nuts
• Sprinkles - these would be mostly for show rather than taste
• Caramel - you can cut them up and add them or melt them (with water) and pour them in and layer them with the chocolate
• Cinnamon Drops - I found these and gave them a try and actually really liked them :)
• Tiny candy pieces
• Pop Rocks could be tasty too - Harry Potter Exploding Bon Bons from Harry Potter world are actually white chocolate candies with pineapple/orange pop rocks inside
• Gel Food Coloring (optional)- only if you are using white chocolate and you want to color it, remember that you can't use water-based food colorings with chocolate

Other Supplies:

• Candy Stick Mold - this is the exact one I used, but you can use what you want
• Containers to melt chocolate (you will need a few if you are doing different colors) and Spoons
• Double boiler if you want to melt your chocolate that way

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There are two ways to approach making these.

The first way is to add your toppings to the mold first. This is easy as you can prep all the molds before you even melt the chocolate so you don't have to worry about the chocolate hardening too fast.

Take your molds and put in your toppings. If your toppings are too large, such as the freeze-dried raspberries. If these toppings are too big, it will be hard for the chocolate to flow down around them.

When your molds are prepped with toppings, melt your chocolate with your method of choice.

Carefully spoon the chocolate into the candy stick mold. Take breaks and carefully tap the mold on the counter to get the chocolate to settle into the mold. You'll probably see bubbles come up to the surface. If they don't pop on their own, pop them.

Continue to add chocolate to the molds until they are full.

Try to level off the molds the best you can with the back of the knife. If your toppings stick up too far out of the mold, it will be hard to level these off.

Leave them to harden. You can put them in the fridge if it is white chocolate, but if you use regular chocolate, putting it in the fridge will probably cause it to bloom and get white spots.

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I prefer this method as it's easier (just fill up the molds with topping, then melt and add the chocolate) and I like the way the chocolate sticks look with the toppings as they show up well with this method.

The second method of making these is adding some chocolate into the mold first, then adding the topping, then filling the mods up the rest of the way with chocolate.

If you have to crush or chop up any toppings, get that ready first.

Once you are ready, melt your chocolate.

Carefully spoon some chocolate into the molds. Not a lot. You just want to coat the bottoms.

Now add in your toppings.

Finish up by covering your toppings with the rest of your chocolate.

For the caramel ones, I cut up the caramel cube into strips first. Then, I put a little chocolate in the mold, line the mold with the caramel pieces, and then cover them the rest of the way with chocolate.

Let these dry. You can put them in the fridge, but the chocolate will probably bloom in there. I have some spots you can see that happened.

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This method makes for more sturdy chocolate sticks (as the chocolate encase the toppings better) but the toppings don't show off as well.

If you want multi-colored chocolate sticks, you are going to need to divide out your white chocolate, or vanilla chocolate coating, and melt it.

Once melted, add your gel food coloring. Don't add to much and make sure the colorings are shaken up if you have little bottles like me. Too much and non-shaken bottles can cause the chocolate to seize up.

When you have them all mixed up, start to fill the molds. I went with the same method I used when making my Rainbow Chocolate Bark where I added a little of each color in globs.

One thing I noticed here was to make sure you add all the colors you want BEFORE you tap the mold. As soon as you tap it, the chocolate will flow to fill the mold and you won't be able to add any other colors to the base of the mold.

Continue adding colors to the molds until they are full. Try not to overfill as you can't really level these off without messing up the color patterns.

If your chocolates seem to get hard (because you are using a bunch of small amounts) quickly pop them back in the microwave to remelt them. I tried to quickly finish this up but the chocolate was too hard and they didn't work as you can see in the sticks in the top of the mold.

Once you are sure they are stiffened, you can carefully pop them out of the mold.

You want to be careful as they can break. I recommend, stretching out the mold and trying to pull it from the sides of the chocolate sticks the best you can. Then, carefully push the sticks out as evenly as possible so you aren't bending them or putting too much force on one side of the stick over the other.

When I got them out, I carefully broke off any hanging bits that were from the overflow in the mold. You can also cut these off using a sharp knife and cutting board.

Store them in an airtight container and enjoy! They should keep a while as they are mostly sugar but it will depend on the toppings you use.