Living in a pandemic is stressful, and I came across the concept of hot chocolate bombs on a particularly stressful day. So I promptly ordered the molds from Amazon and a giant container of hot chocolate and created these as a form of stress relief. They are incredibly fun to use and quite tasty as well.
Would I recommend investing in the equipment for these? That depends on whether you want a cool party trick, if you'd use the molds more than once, whether you plan to make them for gifts, etc. The answer for me was yes to all of these. I can envision a non-COVID world where I need teacher gifts and package these in a mug for all the teachers and aides that make our world go round (whom I desperately miss currently).
I think I need to try a white chocolate version, and my son would appreciate a milk chocolate version. (I used a dark chocolate because that's my jam.)
Hot Chocolate Bombs
12 oz. high quality chocolate (can use milk, dark or white), chopped
6 Tbsp. hot cocoa mix (although I may double that in the future)
Miniature marshmallows (or other fun add-ins)
Temper the chocolate. If you've never done that before, I followed simple instructions to temper in the microwave by melting 3/4 of the chocolate, stirring every 10 seconds. Once that was melted, I stirred in the remaining chocolate and allowed it to melt.
Use a spoon to spread chocolate into the molds. (I poured chocolate in each mold and used the back of a spoon to make sure the chocolate went up the sides.) Turn the molds upside down and shake out the excess chocolate. Place in the freezer 5 minutes. Attempt to remove bombs from molds. If they show signs of cracking, you can reinforce them with a bit more chocolate, just spreading it on with a spoon. Chill again to solidify.
Carefully remove molds. Fill half of them with 1 Tbsp. of cocoa mix and mini marshmallows. Microwave a plate, so it is warm to the touch. Working carefully, take an unfilled chocolate shell and melt its edges on the plate. Stick it to one of the filled halves. Repeat the process to make all the bombs. You can also use a warm spoon to help smooth the lines where they connect. Makes 6 bombs.
Full disclosure: Not every bomb melted and opened this cool. One broke because it wasn't sealed well enough, and another simply melted with a hole instead of the cool reveal. Still tasty and still fun. We were 2 out of 4 of the ones we tried.
