Healthy Hot Chocolate Spoons Recipe

A Super Fun Way to Serve Hot Chocolate

Have you heard about hot chocolate spoons? It’s such a fun way to serve up some hot chocolate to your kids on a chilly fall morning or after a blistery winter day playing in the snow. If your kids love hot chocolate and you love refined sugar free treats, you are all going to love this DIY hot chocolate on a stick!

I actually had not heard of this innovative concept when I began creating the recipe for homemade hot chocolate spoons. The inspiration for this recipe goes back to about about a year ago when my daughter salivated over a box of chocolate spoons we saw in the checkout line at Home Goods.

She begged me to get them, but after reading the ingredients (LOTS of processed sugar), I put them back on the shelf and promised I would find a way to make her some myself at some point. So when I saw spoon-shaped candy molds at Hobby Lobby recently, I knew this was the perfect time to create the recipe!

But it was a bigger challenge than I imagined it would be. I had two major issues I just couldn’t overcome no matter how many new, modified batches I made:

1. Because of the size limitation, it was not possible to get enough flavor inside of them to make a decent size cup of hot cocoa. I kept trying them out with my daughter in very small cups of hot milk only to be disappointed when there still wasn’t much flavor or sweetness.
2. I was limited in how much honey I could add to the recipe because too much honey makes the chocolate soft and bendy. Who wants a spoon that wilts when you hold it up?

Something else I didn’t like about the hot cocoa spoons from a candy mold was the fact that I always had to give my daughter a regular spoon too. She couldn’t actually mix with her chocolate spoon since it would begin to melt and sink to the bottom as soon as it was dunked into the hot milk.

I was getting pretty discouraged about my homemade hot chocolate spoons idea. So I did what everyone does when they need inspiration: I turned to Pinterest! 😃

And that’s when I discovered hot cocoa on a stick instead of … a hot cocoa stick ☺️ Which would end up being the answer to all of my problems with the hot cocoa spoons recipe.

With a new shape and more cubic centimeters to work with, I was able to create a healthy hot chocolate shell and flavor-packed honey-cocoa filling that make a wonderfully chocolaty and sweet cup of hot cocoa when mixed into a regular-sized cup of hot milk.

Plus, with a built-in spoon or stir stick, I no longer had to supply my daughter with an additional spoon 😃 So the modified homemade hot chocolate on a stick was a success in the end and I think you and your kids are going to love them as much as we do!

What to Use Hot Chocolate Spoons for

Now, if the hot chocolate on a stick idea is new to you too, you might be wondering why you need them. So I’m going to share with you the purpose of these and why they are so great.

Here are some reasons to love DIY hot cocoa on a stick:

Extra Easy Hot Chocolate: Having these hot chocolate sticks on hand means you can quickly and easily produce a warning cup of homemade hot cocoa for your kids.

My daughter sometimes likes to drink hot chocolate for breakfast, and these make it much quicker to get it ready on a busy school morning. All I have to do is heat up some milk and hand my daughter a hot cocoa stick and let her mix it herself.

Fun Hot Chocolate: All practicality aside, hot cocoa on a stick is just plain fun! Kids love watching things transform, mixing things and being in charge. Hot chocolate sticks accommodate all of those things 😁

Plus, you can even add some fun, colorful decorations by using my buttercream frosting recipe (see the Substitutions & Tips section for more details on that). Make your hot cocoa sticks colorful for Halloween, Christmas or Valentine’s Day.

Healthy Hot Chocolate: This DIY hot cocoa on a stick is much healthier than a pre-made hot cocoa mix or hot cocoa spoons you could buy at the store. Prepacked hot chocolate in any form is always full of refined sugar and likely some other processed ingredients as well. But with this homemade hot cocoa mix recipe, there is ZERO refined sugar. Raw honey is the only sweetener in these hot chocolate cups.

Giftable Hot Chocolate: Another thing these are great for is gifting. Need some thoughtful holiday gift ideas for your child’s teachers, neighbors or friends? How about DIY Christmas hot chocolate on a stick – or several of them in a jar or decorative bag?

I’m sure you can come up with your own fun and festive ideas for this unique homemade hot cocoa recipe. But they are also just nice for convenience 🙂

Ingredients

• Raw Honey: Raw unfiltered honey is the only sweetener in this hot cocoa spoons recipe. This honey on Amazon is the best price I have found so far, but you can also find raw unfiltered honey at Trader Joes and sometimes at Costco or Home Goods.

• Cocoa Powder: Cocoa powder is the primary source of chocolate flavor in this recipe. I usually use cacao powder as it is less processed, but any cocoa powder will do.

• Unsweetened Baker’s Chocolate: This is necessary for producing a solid chocolate outer shell for the chocolate cups since cocoa powder does not solidify in the same way. Make sure you buy unsweetened baker’s chocolate.

• Coconut Oil: Just a tiny bit of coconut oil is used to help the baker’s chocolate melt properly. There is no coconut taste in the finished product. I usually get my coconut oil from Costco.

• Flavoring: This is optional, but if you want to make your hot chocolate spoons themed for a season or holiday, you can add 1/4 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, peppermint extract or even almond extract. My daughter loves peppermint hot chocolate, so I often use peppermint extract in ours.

Instructions

Make the Filling

Start off by making the hot cocoa filling for your hot cocoa cups.

To a small bowl, add the honey and cocoa powder. Gently mix together with a small spatula or spoon, being careful not to send the cocoa powder flying with too fast of movements.

Once fully combined, set the filling aside.

Make the Chocolate Spoon Cups

Step 1

Have your silicone mini muffin pan and your wooden spoons or popsicle sticks ready nearby.

Step 2

In a small bowl, measure out your honey and set aside.

Step 3

To a small pot, add the unsweetened baker’s chocolate and coconut oil.

Step 4

Heat the coconut oil and baker’s chocolate on low, stirring constantly to prevent overheating until fully melted and combined.

Allow chocolate to cool for 3-5 minutes.

Step 5

After chocolate has cooled slightly, add in the honey and mix until fully combined.

Step 6

Spoon about a teaspoon of chocolate into each of 6 mini muffin cups and spread it up the sides of each cup with the back of your spoon so that your chocolate will be in the shape of the cup when set.

You should be left with a little bit of melted chocolate that will be used for the tops.

Step 7

Place the muffin pan in the freezer for 5 minutes to firm up the chocolate a bit. It does not have to be completely solid, but you want it a little firm so that the chocolate shell does not get messed up while you are adding the filling.

Step 8

Once chocolate cups have firmed a bit, evenly distribute your honey-cocoa filling amongst the 6 chocolate muffin cups.

Step 9

On top of the filling, evenly distribute the remainder of the melted chocolate and gently spread around to completely cover the filling and seal the edges of the cups.

Step 10

Place a wooden spoon into the center of each hot cocoa cup and chill in the freezer for 15 minutes or the fridge for a half hour to solidify the shell.

Step 11

If you want to add decoration using buttercream frosting, do this after chilling the completed hot cocoa cups.

* See notes in recipe card.

Step 12

Store in an airtight container or bag in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Substitutions & Tips

• To add decorations to these hot cocoa cups, make my honey sweetened buttercream frosting and add food coloring (I like India Tree dye-free, sugar-free, dye-free food coloring). Cut one corner off of a plastic sandwich bag and fill it with your colored frosting (using one bag for each color). Then use your sandwich bag like a cake decorating bag to make decorative dots or lines on your hot chocolate spoons.

• The honey and cocoa filling that goes inside the shell of the hot cocoa cups might seem like it’s not going to mix together, but it will. Keep mixing it and it will essentially turn into a thick, chocolate honey.

• This hot cocoa on a stick can be made in the flavor of your choice. For plain hot chocolate, simply follow the recipe without the optional flavoring. For a fall version, add a 1/4 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the shell portion or the filling portion of the hot chocolate cups. For Christmas hot chocolate spoons, add 1/4 teaspoon of pure peppermint extract.

• As a dairy free hot cocoa mix, this is a great hot chocolate recipe for kids with dairy intolerances. My daughter and I have tried these hot cocoa sticks in both dairy milk and unsweetened almond milk and it tastes great either way ☺️ Feel free to use whatever dairy free milk your child prefers in place of dairy milk for mixing in the hot cocoa spoons.

• These hot cocoa cups on sticks need to be kept refrigerated so that the outer shell stays hardened. While they will be fine if left out of the fridge for a short time, if they warm to room temperature, the shell will become soft and your hot chocolate cups might not hold together.

• Since these hot chocolate spoons need to be stored in the fridge, you need to make sure the milk is warmed enough to melt the chocolate shell. Please be extra careful with little ones and hot milk. You may need to mix in the chocolate for younger children to ensure they to not scald themselves.

• The intensity of flavor from these hot chocolate spoons will depend on how large of a cup of hot chocolate you are making. For about 200 grams of milk (about an 8 ounce mug that is filled 3/4 of the way full), one of these hot cocoa spoons is just right for my kids. However, if your child likes a much stronger hot cocoa flavor, you can either use less milk for a small cup of hot cocoa or, alternatively, make a slightly larger cup of hot cocoa and use two spoons (two spoons in an 8 ounce cup would be a lot of chocolate-to-milk ratio).