Homemade Chocolate Dipped Spoons

Chocolate dipped spoons for stirring coffee and other hot drinks are a winter treat and a perfect crafted gift for neighbors and friends. As homemade gifts go, chocolate dipped stirring spoons are easy, very effective and pretty cheap too. My husband and I made a batch to include in gift baskets for our neighbors. We found it was fast and fun, and they turned out really "coffee shop chic" looking as well.

I found a number of websites with instructions for making chocolate dipped stirring spoons. The instructions generally went along the lines of, "melt chocolate, being careful not to burn it, dip spoons, sprinkle, and allow to harden." It really is this simple generally, but here are my experiences and some tips that I developed in the course of making this homemade gift.

We used a bag of milk chocolate chips, about 8 candy canes, and a box of 48 clear plastic spoons for this crafted gift project. The total cost was about five dollars for all 48 chocolate dipped spoons. We will use the spoons in five different gift baskets, adding a cost of about a dollar per gift.

It is important to use the clear plastic spoons when making chocolate spoons because they are much sturdier than the white ones and will hold up to the heat of the melted chocolate just fine. We bought our spoons at Wal-Mart, and they have openings cut into the handles. Personally I didn't care for this, and thought it weakened the handle of the spoon, so you'll want to watch out for that and decide how you feel about this kind of spoon.

We crushed the candy canes by putting them into two heavy duty freezer zip bags, then tapping them gently with a hammer to break them into small "sprinkle-able" pieces. The bags did not tear too badly, and though some candy cane dust worked it's way through and onto the counter, no larger crumbs spilled.

Melting the chocolate chips was fairly easy. I followed the melting instructions on the back of the bag. Using a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup, I microwaved the entire package of chocolate chips for 1 minute, then stirred them and melted them in 15 second intervals, stirring between each microwave session. It took about 8 fifteen second intervals to get them smooth enough for dipping, but it's important not to try to do this all at once, because the stirring helps to keep the chocolate from burning, and microwaves all vary in the heating time that will be needed.

I melted the chocolate until it was quite liquid and smooth, since I did not want spoons with lots and lots of chocolate on them. I was just going for a thin coating. To assure that I had a thin even coating, I swirled each spoon in the chocolate, then tapped it on the side of the container a number of times to remove some of the clinging chocolate.

We used a large cooling rack and a cookie sheet, both lined with waxed paper, to hold the spoons while they cooled. I dipped the spoons and then my husband sprinkled the still soft chocolate with candy cane bits. He found that then pressing down gently with the back of a clean spoon really helped the candy cane sprinkles adhere to the chocolate.

In the end, one bag of chocolate chips was just enough to cover the bowls of 48 spoons. We still have some crushed candy cane left, because we smashed all twelve that came in the package, but by my estimate, eight candy canes would make plenty of peppermint sprinkle bits for all 48 chocolate dipped stirring spoons. I'm storing the finished spoons in an airtight container in the refrigerator until they are needed. This homemade gift took us about half an hour to make and after they sat overnight and set, we had 4 dozen very nice treats ready to wrap up and include in gift baskets.