Spiced Hot Chocolate: great gift idea

Today is Luca's final day of school for the year and he took a bunch of these jars of spiced hot chocolate mixture for his teachers (he has five. Go figure.)

I felt pretty chuffed with myself for putting these together - though time-consuming they are definitely a great handmade gift idea that didn't cost us anything. £2 maybe for the chocolate and mini-marshmallows but that's it.

I'm certainly discovering that doing a 'hand-made Christmas' is a time-consuming option, but definitely the best option for us with no spare cashola...
And yet not the best option when I have very little time on my hands for crafting...
Maybe next year I'll be more on-to-it.

But I did manage to get these teacher gifts done {after taste-testing them myself and perfecting the recipe. The sacrifice was enormous...}

This is how it goes if you are daring to indulge!

Ingredients
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 Tablespoon flour
pinch salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
6 Mini marshmallows
1 Tablespoon White and dark chocolate chips (or pieces chopped into chunks)

Assembly Method
1. In a small preserving jar (I used empty jam jars I hold onto for preserving...not that I do a lot of preserving...!) pour half the amount of sugar and shake down so it settles firmly in the bottom of the jar.
2. Sift half the amount of cocoa on top of the sugar and pack down firmly.
3. Combine flour and salt in a bowl and sift half this amount on top of cocoa. Shake down to settle.
4. Sift cinnamon and cloves on top of flour.
5. Sift rest of flour and salt mixture and then last portion of cocoa.
6. Pour last portion of sugar on top and shake jar to settle and pack down so contents will not move in the jar.
7. Place marshmallows and chocolate bits in separate plastic bags and place them carefully on top of the spiced hot chocolate mixture then seal the lid. {I used plastic freezer bags which I cut up and wrapped the chocolate and marshmallows in, sealing firmly with tape}.


On the gift tag is where you attach the instructions for preparing the hot chocolate:

Preparation Method
1. Pour contents into a bowl and mix.
2. In a small saucepan bring 1/4 cup of water to the boil.
3. Stir in contents from the bowl and add chocolate pieces also.
4. Continue stirring for 1-2 minutes or until cocoa is warm and smooth.
5. Add 2 cups of milk to the cocoa mixture and heat again to required drinking temperature.
6. In 2 mugs, add 6 marshmallows to each mug and pour hot chocolate over the top.
7. Sit back, relax, enjoy your Spiced Hot Chocolate and have a Merry Christmas!

:::

Another option is to leave out the spices and add crushed candy canes in their place.
The spices makes it very 'Christmassy' tasting but the candy canes would look cool visually in the jar.

Let me know if you give this a try and any alterations to the recipe you made.
I know you'll love it :)