If you have coffee or even hot chocolate drinkers on your gift giving list, these chocolate-dipped candy cane stirrers make easy, inexpensive, homemade Christmas gifts. And they’re a fun treat to have around home too.
I whipped these up in under an hour. They’re so simple, but so pretty. All you need is a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, a box of candy canes, some shortening, sprinkles and wax paper.
First I melted the shortening and chocolate chips together in the microwave. I used a tall coffee cup to make dipping the candy canes in the melted chocolate easier. Heat the chocolate chips and shortening 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each time until they’re completely melted. It took 1 minute and 30 seconds in my microwave, but it will very with different microwaves and containers.
Now you just dip your candy canes in the chocolate to coat them about halfway up. You may need to tip your container to one side to get the chocolate deep enough. This goes faster is you have your candy canes unwrapped ahead a time. Unwrapping is probably the most time-consuming part of this, and the hardest part is doing it without breaking any of them! I broke a couple, but the kids were happy to take care of the broken ones for me.
Place the dipped candy canes on the wax paper. You want the chocolate to set a little (two minutes) before you coat it with sprinkles.
Then roll the chocolate dipped part in the sprinkles. For a thinner coating of sprinkles just pour them over. And you can get creative with what you cover the chocolate with. I used these mini marshmallows to go with hot chocolate. You could even try broken up candy bar pieces.
As you can see there was a lot of chocolate left on the wax paper after I picked the candy canes up. I think next time I might try propping them up in cups or something to let them dry.
To gift the candy cane coffee sticks package them in cellophane bags. To make it more special include a mug and a bag of coffee or hot chocolate mix.
These homemade Christmas gifts take very little time and only a few dollars, but they’re so pretty. It think anyone would love them. And my kids thinks they’re good to eat just on their own too!
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Chocolate-Dipped Candy Cane Recipe
Ingredients
1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons of shortening
Unwrapped candy canes
Sprinkles
Instructions
Melt chocolate chips and shortening together in the microwave. Heat for 30 seconds at a time, stirring each time, until melted. Dip candy canes in chocolate. Let candy canes rest on wax paper for two minutes then cover in sprinkles or other item of choice. Chocolate will harden completely in about 10 minutes.
What a great idea!! Pinning! I think that would be fun to make with my daughter…not that she needs my help, but it could be something to do together!
Oh gosh, I love these! This year I was terrible about doing any homemade gifts, but next year – NEXT YEAR – I am going to get on it and do lots of stuff, and I am totally pinning this so I can find it again and do these as part of the deal. I think I’ll do these, different kinds of popcorn, cocoa mix and kahlua! Yay!
What a great idea! This is totally what I need to do to get in the Christmas spirit which seems to really be lacking in our house lately. Thanks for posting!