This is a funny post… I’d love to sit here and tell you that all my ideas come out great and I never have total disasters but that would would be one big fat lie! There are times when I’m bored or feel overly creative and get these coo coo random marshmallow ideas. Sometimes they are cool and sometimes they leave me thinking “OMG, what the heck was I thinking”. The cool stuff is what makes it to the blog, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, on and on. Then the not-so-proud of stuff gets stashed somewhere in The Studio hidden from the public eye. It’s true! 

Well, I decided it was time to share with you one of my all-time epic fail projects = Hot Chocolate sticks…

<<< This is the pretty one…. see below for the full story >>>

I began seeing hot chocolate stirrers pop up everyone online then I saw a recipe on The Tomkat Studio’s 2012 Holiday Gift Guide that I just had to try. They looked beautiful and the recipe seemed easy enough with simple steps and ingredients so why not, I thought. I gathered all the goodies and got to cookin’.

Everything was going great so far. Although the recipe said to pour into a lined pan or into silicone molds, I thought I’d use ice cube trays instead. BAD IDEA! Also, the recipe said to add optional marshmallow when chocolate had set not while it was still warm. Well, genius me thought why wait… I’ll insert the sticks now and add my fluffy marshmallows now so they can stick to the chocolate while it’s setting. This was another BAD IDEA. The poor marshmallows soaked up the moisture from the chocolate and got stained on the bottom. Bummer but still could be fixed, I thought. I went on to place the trays in the refrigerator to let them harden.

   

Then it was time to “pop” them out. Not too much popping happened. I was assuming that the chocolate would get hard enough to just pop out like an ice cube but they sure didn’t. Due to the ingredients in the mixture, they never got hard enough like straight melted chocolate would have. I had to use a knife to scoop them out from each cavity. It took some elbow grease and lots of patience. Which I admit, I didn’t not have at this point. I knew that this was a total disaster and I had just wasted lovely chocolate. The texture was like a softer form of fondant so I tried to shape them back into some-what cubes with my hands but it was not happening 🙁

   

Soooo, I finally got them all out and as I was starring at my ugly, misshaped, horrible looking but yummy tasting chocolate thingies… I thought, there must be something I can save from this. Another idea came to me….. I’d make balls out of them, cool them in the fridge, insert sticks and add decorated marshmallows or tags.

   

 They would look like cake balls but they’d be hot chocolate balls ready to be enjoyed!!

   

So that was exactly what I did with them. This was the result:

   

As I was there shaping balls and pondering why I had thought ice cube trays were a good idea in the first place.. I thought to myself, these balls are so ugly they look like monster poop hahahaha! So I made a little monster out of one. I pulled a ball apart, stuck a bunch of Jet-Puffed Mallow Bits in the center, then placed two on top and drew two black dots on them to look like eyes. It’s like a brownie monster. Well, monster or dinosaur.. you decide! 🙂

   

I’m a strong believer of: “If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again” (like that Aliyah song,,, wow I just dated myself) Anyways, I will give this recipe a shot again and also try these Chocolate Stirrers from Celebrations at H0me and these Hot Chocolate Sticks from 30 Pounds of Apples.

Moral of this post:

1. Always follow recipes exactly, someone has already done the homework for you!
2. Failures are just opportunities for you to learn from and become a better you

Thanks for reading and laughing with me 🙂