Procrastinators Handmade Christmas: Cocoa Cones

Welcome to Procrastinators Handmade Christmas!  This week I’m featuring Handmade Gift ideas for those of us who wait until the week of Christmas to get our acts together.  [cough. me. cough.] Get your supplies together, my friends! These gifts are simple for you, and thoughtful for your loved ones. Get ready to get productive with these last minute gifts!

Greetings THS Readers! For those of you who do not know, I am Heather’s younger sister, Melissa.

I work at my alma mater, a small, private college in Moorhead, MN as a Residence Hall Director. Part of my job is supervising the RAs who live in my building and working very closely with the amazing custodial staff. As our semester is coming to an end, I was searching for something fun to give each of my staff members as a “Merry Christmas, thanks for your hard work” gift.

Since this year our staff chose to have these sweet custom travel mugs made for our hall’s residents, I decided to stick with a warm beverage theme.

At first I was going to go for gift cards to our on-campus coffee shop (awesomely named the Coffee Stop). However, this seemed could get a little pricey with the amount I’d want to put on each card. I then considered Jess’ rockin’ Cocoa Jars, but I couldn’t find any jars that I really loved, and shockingly, places were running low on Ball Jars (isn’t canning season over?). So I took a little more time to think on this cocoa idea and remembered something I did for a group of people a few years ago: Cocoa Cones.

You’ve likely seen these on sale at your favorite retailers (you know, the ones that you can run to at 11pm for a hand mixer – though that’s another story). Nonetheless, they are usually in the $5 – $10 dollar range. This homemade spin is a little less expensive and made with a something special: LOVE.

 

The first step to making Cocoa Cones (or making anything, really) is making sure you have all materials needed. Here is the basic run down:

• Powder Cocoa Mix (enough for two servings per cone)
• Chocolate Chips (I like the mini kind best)
• Mini Marshmallows
• Disposable Cake Decorating Bags (You’ll need two bags per cone. I’ve found these at craft stores and Wal-mart)
• Rubber Bands
• Scissors
• Ribbon
• LOVE
• Holiday Music (I chose the Jackson 5 “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” Pandora station)

Now that you’ve gathered all of your materials, you need to turn on your holiday music to get into the spirit of giving, as well as the spirit of smelling like cocoa powder for the rest of the day.

Take the first cake decorating bag and pour in two servings of cocoa. For the majority of powdered cocoas, one serving is 2 tablespoons of powder. If individual packets of cocoa are on super sale, you can use those and pour in two envelopes. Rubber band this bag closed and cut off the excess bag 1 inch from the rubber band. Then, place this bag inside of another decorating bag. As you can see from the photo, this looks like a brown carrot inside of some sort of special carrot bag.

Add chocolate chips on top of the cocoa bag. I don’t know the quantity of chips I add*, but I go for about an inch, as you can see in this photo. On a side note, I do not have special powers that allow me to hold the bag horizontally without the chips falling out; instead, I could not make my photo rotate correctly.

After the chocolate chips come the mini marshmallows. Like the chips, I just add enough to cover the rest of the excess cocoa bag, and then a little extra*. After adding the mallows, rubber band the bag closed.

I created tags on my computer with instructions for making the cocoa.

I added the tags to the cones with ribbon and viola! My staff and custodial gifts were done!

Other times I have made these I added a red wrapped candy on the very top of the mallows to make it look like a cherry on an ice cream cone. I’ve also added a layer of sprinkles or candy canes. Be creative! Really, if this is something that I can make, ANYONE can make it.

*Since my chip and mallow servings aren’t exact, I can tell you that I made 12 cones with one regular sized bag of mini chips and about 1 ½ bags of mini mallows.