Chocolate week fun with Cadbury

When Consumer Bias gave me the chance to do a sponsored post for Chocolate Week, and the challenge to create with Cadbury chocolate, I wasn’t going to turn that down.  I’d always wanted to try making chocolate lollies so went straight to Pinterest to check out some ideas.

As N’s inherited my chocaholic tendencies, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get him involved, so decided on some shaped lollies, and freeform versions like the hearts above.  With Halloween also on the way, I wanted to track down some moulds so we could make some attempt at getting in the halloween spirit.  You can check out our shop here over on Google+.

It turns out it’s pretty hard to find everything you want in one shop, but Sainsbury’s had a new baking section which had a great selection.  We also managed  to find some halloween moulds – ok, so they were meant to be for ice cubes, but I thought we’d see how they worked with chocolate.

As soon as I got some old moulds I had out of the cupboard and put all the chocolate on the work surface, N was there pulling a chair over so he could get up and get stuck in.  I’m always lazy and use the microwave to melt chocolate (although the Aga does come in useful too if you’re more patient), rather than doing a bain marie.  The challenge was making space in the fridge to ensure the baking sheets with our creations on would stay flat.

Firstly we used teddy and pig moulds with wooden sticks.  Practicing the animal moulds means that I know they’ll work for potential birthday party goody bags.  We only used Cadbury Buttons and Dairy Milk for our lollies, but with these moulds we could have used white chocolate for the ears or detailing.  With a toddler, and for a first time, it was easier to just use the one chocolate.  I was a bit concerned how we’d get them out of the moulds, but silicone is so easy to use, all apart from the (too thin) pig’s ear came out with no problems.

N checking they’re ok…with me shouting ‘don’t touch’

We also used some small star moulds with plastic sticks.   I think these would be great for a hot chocolate treat – great as a stirrer amongst marshmallows and squirty cream.  Ours weren’t the neatest as I think we over filled a bit, but they’d be easily neatened off.  The stars really show how shiny the Cadbury chocolate is once set again.

The lollies I’d really wanted to try were similar to those I’d seen in Lorraine Pascal’s Fresh, Fast and Easy recipe book.  She used white chocolate and made perfect circles, but although I’d planned circles, we had to reassess as I only had small baking trays left and there wasn’t room on them or in the fridge.  Instead, we make whatever shapes we fancied.  N then sprinkled citrus hundreds and thousands over, and chocolate sprinkles for a bit of texture.

I had wanted to try some freeform shapes.  The ones I’d seen on Pinterest were hearts, but I thought circles would work.  They weren’t a success – I think the chocolate would have been too heavy for the sticks, so we filled in (randomly) our shapes.  Once they were set, the edges broke really easy, so I guess it might have worked better having piped the chocolate out and being less ‘random’ with it to ensure the stick would hold it better.

We had enough chocolate left (N had thought he would be allowed to slurp spoonfuls of the melted chocolate, but I put a stop to that), so used the Halloween mould for the less intricate designs.  The remaining chocolate N spooned into petit fours cases.  He doesn’t eat much chocolate (apart from when there’s cake around) so having small individual portions like that let him have a little bit for a treat without having to break off pieces from a massive slab.

By the time all the lollies and treats had gone in the fridge, N had obviously had a good time, judging by the state of his t-shirt.

In the fridge, the chocolate set quickly, although with the silicone moulds I left them in for a few hours to make sure they were fully set underneath.

The anticipation of seeing them complete and ready to eat is brilliant, and N keeps telling his dad that there’s pudding the the fridge.  Not quite, although I don’t think the OH’s realised he’s talking about chocolate treats.

What did we use for the lollies?

Ingredients:

Cadbury chocolate – we used Cadbury Dairy Milk large blocks (2) and a sharing bag of Giant Buttons.

Moulds (silicone seems to work brilliant as it’s easy to pop them out), with either plastic or wooden sticks

Fridge.  After setting, the chocolate should be fine kept for a week or so.  I’d keep it covered but don’t worry if you get a white bloom on the chocolate, it just doesn’t look nice but isn’t a problem to eat.  I find with melting and moulding chocolate, that it’s best to keep it in the fridge as you never know what temperature other rooms end up being, so you get soft chocolate.

It really was a foody creating day as I wanted to use up some of my baking box supplies in the larder, so we also made some ‘Oreo Pumpkins’.  I’ll share a post for those in the next couple of days.

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I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client.