Chocolate Presents

What is really fun about these chocolates is that you can make them your own and be creative with them. What type of chocolate do you want to use? What are you going to fill them with? How are you going to decorate the outside? All up to you!

To make these Chocolate Presents, you’ll need:

• Melting chocolate
• Fillings (candies, nuts, etc)
• Gel icing
• Ice cube trays

To start, you will need your ice cube trays. I recommend using trays with a silicone bottom and rounded corners. This will make removing the chocolates much easier.

Get your chocolate and melt it in the microwave. Heat it for 30 seconds intervals, stirring after each heating, until the chocolate is fully melted and smooth. I chose to do 3 different kinds of chocolate, but you can use any (or however many) chocolate you want.

Using a spoon, scoop some of the melted chocolate into each ice cube tray, and use the back of the spoon to spread it up the sides of each cube. Once all cubes have chocolate coating the bottom and sides, place the ice cube tray in the freezer for 10 minutes.

While the ice cube tray is in the freezer, get your fillings ready. You can use any fillings you want. I chose to use several different ones. So when you bite into it, you really won’t know what you’re getting!
If you need some ideas, I used:

• Crushed Oreos
• Mini M&M's
• Chopped walnuts
• Reese's Pieces
• Miniature Reese's cups
• Heath toffee bits
• Caramel bits
• Andes mints

In each cube, add one (or more!) of your prepared fillings. Elayne helped me with the fillings! She did a good job of adding fillings to each cube. And then of course, eating the M&M’s and walnuts! 😄

Then, fill the remaining space with more melted chocolate. You will probably need to reheat your chocolate so that it's melted and smooth again. Place the ice cube tray back in the freezer for at least an hour so the chocolate can fully set.

After your chocolate is fully hardened, remove the cubes from the tray. Now you can decorate them! I chose to use gel icing tubes for this. I just make a simple bow in the middle, and then added an extra line of gel to each side to be the ribbon. Decorate however you wish, and then leave the chocolates alone so that the gel can harden some.

As the gel sets, it becomes less sticky. But it never becomes fully hard. So if you press it, it will squish. For this reason, I recommend storing carefully. I know it's not always feasible to store in a single layer. So I recommend only having 2 chocolates stacked, and having wax paper between layers. This way, there will not be too much weight pressing on the bottom chocolate, and the wax paper will prevents the gels from sticking.