DIY Hot Chocolate Bombs

If you've been on Facebook, Instagram, or Tik Tok recently, then I'm sure you've probably seen the newest holiday trend: Hot Chocolate Bombs. There a sphere made of chocolate with hot chocolate powder, marshmallows, peppermints, sprinkles, and other fun candy pieces that you place into a mug and pour hot milk over before stirring it all together to make the perfect cup of hot chocolate. You can get them in different colors and different flavors, and they can be as fancy or as simple as you want them to be.

You know I had to try it out.

I know that I just did a boozy hot chocolate post a couple weeks ago and I had originally planned to post a chicken dinner recipe, but I've been having so much fun making these little guys that I wanted to share with you all how you can make your own so we can all enjoy them together!

DIY Hot Chocolate Bombs

Makes one silicone mold of hot chocolate bombs.

Tools

Silicone mold (does not have to be spheres, but needs to be big enough to put stuff inside. Michael’s has lots of good options)

Butter knife

Paint brush Small spoon

Ingredients

1 bag Melting chocolate or 6 Hershey's chocolate bars

Hot chocolate powder

Mini marshmallows

Any other treats you want in your bombs (i.e. Candy Canes, cinnamon, sprinkles, etc.)

Milk of choice (for drinking!)

Instructions

Start by placing your chocolate in a bowl and microwave for thirty second increments, stirring in between each thirty seconds. When the chocolate is fully melted and easy to spread, take your silicone mold, mine is shaped like gingerbread men, and scoop about one spoonful into each one.

Then use the paintbrush to spread the chocolate around the mold and onto the side. Add more if needed. The first layer will be somewhat thin. Place into fridge or freezer for 15 minutes to harden.

Repeat until you have a thick layer of chocolate on all sides. Mine took about two to three layers of chocolate before it was thick enough. After your final layer of chocolate has harden, add your marshmallows, hot chocolate powder, and anything else you want in your hot chocolate bombs!

If you're using a sphere shaped mold, you'll need to heat up a pan on low heat, press one half sphere against the pan until the edges are slightly melted and press an empty half and full half together.

If you have a mold like my gingerbread one, you'll want to scoop a generous (and I do mean generous) spoonful of chocolate on top of all of your toppings and gently smooth it out with the back of a butter knife so you have a nice flat back to your hot chocolate bomb! Remove any excess chocolate and mix back into your chocolate bowl.

You'll need to refrigerate your hot chocolate bombs for about twenty minutes to an hour to ensure that they completely set and ready to use.

To Enjoy

Remove hot chocolate bomb from refrigerator and place into your favorite mug. Heat up your milk of choice either on the stove or in the microwave. Pour the milk over the hot chocolate bomb and watch the chocolate slowly melt, revealing all of the goodies inside! Mix well with a spoon and enjoy!

How My Holiday Season Is Going

With how this year has been going so far for me and my little family, I wasn't really expecting a great holiday season. I, more or less, expected us to be re-shutdown here in Virginia and everything to be pretty stressful. Instead, November ended up being a really good month for me mentally. It was the first month out of this year where I didn't have a ton of anxiety and the only depression I really dealt with was my holiday depression, which wasn't even as bad as it usually is. I am starting to feel like myself again, and it's really nice because it's been a hot minute.

Right now in therapy, we're working on helping me be able to say no firmly and clearly. I've discovered that I really hate saying no to people because it makes me feel mean, and so instead, I give open ended answers like "We'll think about it" or "We're figuring it out" or I just blame other things entirely like having to work or my husband. Because I'm not just saying no thank you and am beating around the bush from having to accept responsibility for my own decisions, people then poke and prod and push and pressure, and I end up feeling frustrated and not respected. I've gotten much better at setting boundaries, now I just have to learn to say no.

Ryan and I are coming up on one year of marriage next week and y'all, it's been a bumpy ass first year of marriage. We dealt with a pandemic that caused me to lose my job for almost six months only to go back to cut hours and less money, my side of the family is going through a really really crappy situation that affects us, our future plans got pushed back almost a year, my mental health tanked this summer, and so much more. Somedays, it feels like we really haven't had any time to breathe and enjoy being newlyweds.

That all being said, I am so blessed to be married to Ryan. We may have our issues sometimes, but he is, by far, the person in this world who loves me the most. He has stood by me through all of the really hard family shit this year without complaining, he has supported me in this blog and my newfound passion for photography, he took my declining mental health seriously and did everything he could to support me and help me find a therapist, and wouldn't allow me to feel bad for needing therapy, even when it hurt us a little financially. He is the man that thirteen year old me never would have even dreamed of being married to.

I'm very ready for 2020 to be over, but to an extent, I'm grateful for what it gave me. I have a stronger relationship with my husband, an amazing therapist who is helping me work through bad habits and issues I thought I'd just live with in order to be a better person for myself, I've created my own life and my own family and my own support system, and I've had a ton of time to really dive into my creative side through blogging and baking and more.

I'm really looking forward to Christmas and our anniversary to end this year on a good note. Ryan's already made plans for us to celebrate one year together (he won't tell me what they are though lol), and we already went ahead and bought our traditional Christmas day movie tickets (We're going to see the new Wonder Woman movie; I'm so excited). It's going to be a good couple weeks, and I'm probably going to spend most of it baking cookies and making more hot chocolate bombs to sell and give away.

I love you all and I hope you also all have a great rest of your holiday season. I've got a couple more blog posts coming out in December, but I'll be switching to posting a new blog post once a week until after the new year just to ensure that I can be present and truly enjoy my anniversary, Christmas, New Years with the people I love the most. This decision will also give me more time to prep all of the exciting things I'm planning for MW in 2021, which I am already so excited for you guys to see.

Take a shot for all of the chocolate stuck to my microwave now and toast to all of the good things that came out of this shitty year,

Cheers,

Kristaleagh